


Some Kind Of Redemption

by Chuthulhu (Mangaluva), Mangaluva



Series: The Sins Of Our Family [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ableist Language, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Assassination Attempt(s), Assassination Plot(s), Azula is her own warning, Colonialism, Court Politics, Hallucinations, Homophobia, I promise nice things will start happening in this one but we're working off a very fucked up base, Imperialism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Instability, Multi, Ozai's A+ Parenting, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Domestic Violence, Physical Disability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Present Tense, Prison, Racist legal systems, Revenge, Self-Harm, Transphobia, Trauma, Victim Blaming, just following orders, probably other tags to be added later, some characters may say fuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:22:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 61,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23945683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangaluva/pseuds/Chuthulhu, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangaluva/pseuds/Mangaluva
Summary: It's a new day.
Relationships: Aang & The Gaang (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar), Azula & Mai & Ty Lee & Zuko, Azula & Ursa (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Ikem/Ursa (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Ursa & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: The Sins Of Our Family [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664698
Comments: 985
Kudos: 1315





	1. How To Hold A Coronation Dinner

**Author's Note:**

> Good news! It's time for good things to happen, sometimes! This is still going to be in a roughly similar style to the previous two fics, but the story structure is going to be different--events are going to lead on to each other, but it's going to be more of a collection of oneshots than an overarching story. Zuko and Azula's relationship is still going to be very important, but there's going to be more time spent on other characters, too, since I've got a lot of threads I want to dig into--Katara's anger, Aang figuring out his life now that it isn't all about the goal of Defeat The Fire Lord, Azula and Zuko's relationships with Mai and Ty Lee, Ursa's still-hidden relationships with Ikem and Kiyi...
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much to everybody who's read and felt moved by the first two parts of this series, and I hope you continue to enjoy this one!

After the coronation of a Fire Lord, there ought to be a grand feast, with all the nobles of the Caldera in attendance. Zuko is immensely grateful that the Royal Palace is still too under-staffed and under-supplied to host such a thing, though he did ask that money be sent down to the restaurants, inns and shops in the Caldera to keep food and drink flowing freely all night for the citizens of the city. Celebrations were planned for Azula’s coronation, then abandoned at short notice. Whether or not they’re celebrating for him, Zuko doesn’t know, but at least he can see to it that everybody in the capital eats well tonight. He still has to eat carefully himself, after so long in starvation, and he just is not ready for the complexities of court politics involved with inviting and seating the nobility. A small dinner with his family, the Fire Sages and the Avatar’s crew is about what he feels up to.

Using the actual banquet hall, under the circumstances of the small guest list, is a formality they’ve let slip, so instead they’re sitting at three tables out under a pavilion meant for small lunches. They’re eschewing the traditional arrangement of courses, too, instead accepting a single mixed spread from a small group of servants carefully vetted by Uncle and Toph, who are then dismissed to go eat dinner with the rest of the servants, leaving their small dinner party in something like privacy.

There are other formalities, however, that must be attended to. Once they’re all seated, the Fire Sages present him with his royal seal. Each one is unique to its Fire Lord, intertwining the insignia of the Royal House with the Fire Lord’s name. It’s a heavy thing of gold and dark lacquered wood, and Zuko still can’t curl his fingers properly, so he has to cup it in both hands to accept it, but with it, he can start issuing the commands of a Fire Lord, and the first one he chooses is of great importance. It will be a sign of what kind of Fire Lord he will be.

He has a few ideas, but he already knows what he needs to do first. He has a promise to keep.

“Uncle, can you help me draft a letter?” he asks. “We need to write to the Boiling Rock. Mai and Ty Lee tried to rescue me from my cell. Now that I’m free, I owe it to them to release them too.”

“The Boiling Rock? Hey, that’s where Dad and Suki are too!” Sokka says around a mouthful of noodles. The Fire Sages look so horrified that Zuko has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

Uncle nods. “They refused my request to release Chief Hakoda and Commander Suki,” he says gravely, “as the Boiling Rock is so high-security that only the Fire Lord may command the release of such prisoners.”

“Well, then, hey, if you’re writing to the Boiling Rock anyway, you can release Dad and Suki too, right?” Sokka says in delight.

Zuko considers this for a moment. Fire Lords past have sometimes used their first order to benefit their wife or husband, or to show favour to a general or noble, but never on request of an outsider to the Fire Nation. On the other hand, it should be a good way to start building bridges with the Water Tribes, as well as showing gratitude to the Avatar’s allies. And it _is_ more convenient to send one list of prisoners to be released than two. It’s one fewer time that he has to figure out how to handle the seal, among other things.

“I’ll do it,” he agrees. “Uncle, please help me write the letter ordering that Mai of House Tamamuko, Ty Lee of House Kawakatsu, Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe and Commander Suki of the Southern Water Tribe—”

“Hey hey hey hey whoa! Hey! Whoa! Suki’s Earth Kingdom,” Sokka blurts out quickly, going an odd shade of red. “She’s the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors!”

“You might remember her,” Katara puts in, glaring at a Zuko. “You burned down her village. Or does that not narrow it down enough?”

Zuko winces. He _does_ remember a Kyoshi Island, and the warriors defending it. Non-benders, and wielding the rather archaic weapon of war fans, but dangerous enough that they’d given the Avatar time to escape. “Right. Commander Suki of Kyoshi Island, then. Please write that the four of them are to be brought to the Royal Palace to be formally released.”

“Of course.” Uncle withdraws some paper, a brush and an ink box from his robes, because of course he anticipated this, and starts to write. “As a first order, this augers well, I hope?” He glances up at the Fire Sages.

“At his coronation, Fire Lord Zuko spoke of undoing the mistakes of past Fire Lords and rebuilding our relationships with other nations,” the head Fire Sage says solemnly. “This first order represents that future for the Fire Nation. Fire Lord Zuko’s strength of character is assured.” Azula’s mostly been ignoring the proceedings in favour of picking all of the best fruit out of the fruit bowls before anybody else can get it, but she does take this opportunity to yawn pointedly.

“And it means we get Dad and Suki back!” Sokka says excitedly. “Thanks, Zuko!”

Katara smiles when her brother hugs her happily, but she’s still giving Zuko and Azula a suspicious look. “_And_ those girls who chased us all over the Earth Kingdom…”

“They’re none of your business, peasant,” Azula drawls. “We don’t have to chase you _now_, do we? You’re right here.”

“Guys, guys,” Aang says quickly, tugging on Katara’s arm to keep her from glaring at Azula, “this is a good thing! Zuko’s helping us! Thanks, Zuko!”

“You’re welcome,” Zuko says. Azula scoffs, rolling her eyes.

“There.” Uncle passes the letter to Zuko to read. His calligraphy is beautiful, precise but with elegant brush-strokes. Zuko’s has always been a little sloppy because he’s never had a lot of patience for making his writing pretty—so long as it’s legible, who cares? When his hands heal, though, he’s going to make more of an effort. It’s a small thing, but it might help balance out his lack of court graces.

“Thank you, Uncle.” He looks down at the seal in his hands, managing to turn it so that he’s holding it insignia-down. One of the Fire Sages passes a wax decanter to Uncle, who heats the small jug in his hands until dark red wax starts to drip out of the spout. He drips a sizeable patch onto the paper, and Zuko carefully maneuvers the seal into place before pressing down on it with the heel of his right hand for a few seconds. When he manages to lift it away again, for the first time, he sees his name embossed in the Royal Flame.

“Oh, _that__’s_ pretty,” Azula says, scooping up the paper and holding it up to the light. “Mine would have been _beautiful_, but it seems that nobody ever bothered to make one for me…”

“You killed the Fire Sages before they could make a seal for you,” Zuko reminds her. The new Fire Sages look more than a little uneasy at the reminder of the fates of their predecessors, and Uncle’s hands are hovering in the air, prepared to snatch the letter away. Zuko hopes Azula doesn’t notice. She and Uncle don’t like each other, and if she thinks destroying the letter will upset him, she’ll probably do it for that reason alone, even if the letter’s necessary to get Mai and Ty Lee back.

Watching Azula warily, not her hand but her face, he can _see_ the moment something changes behind her eyes, even before her smirk turns to a snarl and her fingers tense. “Shut _up_,” she snaps, waving the letter in the air. “They’re not _yours_! They’re _mine_!”

She points and the Fire Sages dive out of the way, but she isn’t pointing at any of them, Zuko can tell, she’s still pointing and glaring and snarling at empty air, at whatever or whoever she sees standing there, and this is going to get _bad_ because all of the Avatar’s friends are on their feet, Katara’s starting to pull water from her waterskins—

Zuko puts his hand on Azula’s arm. “He’s not here, Azula,” he says as loudly as he can, hoping his voice will reach him. Her eyes flicker to him for a moment, and then she glowers at the empty air again.

“Then he should stop pretending that he _is_,” she spits, throwing the letter down. Uncle snatches it up quickly, checking to make sure that it isn’t damaged and then rolling it up for delivery. Azula doesn’t notice, still glaring at the empty air. “You hear that? YOU’RE NOT HERE!” she screams. “SO _GO AWAY!__”_

“Zuko?” Mom whispers, tugging at his shoulder. “What’s happening?”

“She thought she saw Ozai yesterday,” Zuko replies quietly. His mother’s breath hitches sharply. He’ll have to explain what happened in more detail later, but right now he has focus on keeping a fight from breaking out at his coronation dinner. “You’re right, Azula, he’s not here,” he says, raising his voice again. “Sit down. Ignore him. There’s still some strawcherries left.”

“Little children like strawcherries,” Azula growls, sitting down but maintaining murderous eye contact with the Ozai in her mind. Aang starts quietly ushering Katara and Sokka to sit down, too.

“Well, if you don’t want them…” Zuko picks one up and puts it in his mouth. It’s the first time he’s eaten anything other than plain rice or mild soup in months, and he actually sees stars as the sweet flavour washes over his tongue.

“I never said I didn’t _want_ them,” Azula snipes, piling the rest of the bunch onto her plate.

The Fire Sages return to their seats, Katara puts her bending water back in her waterskins, and Toph challenges Sokka to a contest to see who can fit more sushi rolls in their mouths at once, and there’s no combat at the coronation of Fire Lord Zuko.

_I can handle this,_ he decides, _one crisis at a time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a hanko--a unique stamp (in my case with my surname in katakana) used for ID purposes--while I was in Japan so I could get a bank account, and these days they're usually tiny little things made of wood or plastic--ivory or metal if you're fancy-- but I also saw an imperial hanko in a museum and DAMN. Those things could be BIG. Seals in East Asia have always been stamped in ink, not in candle wax like in Europe, but I really like the idea that the Fire Nation, where people can make fire from their hands, would be more likely to use melted wax.


	2. How To Succeed At A Job Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new Fire Lord has an endless to-do list. One thing at a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm probably going to go with "How to..." titles for every chapter. They amuse me, they fit the somewhat lighter tone of this entry in the series, and I feel like they represent how Zuko's and the Gaang are having to rewrite how the world works after the war.

Ending the war is not as simple as Zuko saying “stop” and then sitting back to watch the imperial war machine grind to a halt. The Fire Nation military and navy have both become vast, complex things over a century of constant war, and there are dozens of generals and admirals and specialist commanders, each of whom must be written to individually. Many of them cannot just be told to stop, but also directed on where to fall back to as they await further orders.

Predictably, Azula immediately gets bored when she realizes how Zuko intends to spend the rest of his coronation day, orders Zuko not to die in her absence, and leaves to drill her firebending. Mom goes with her, probably to keep an eye on her, but Zuko also hopes that their mother can see how much Azula loves firebending, and resolves to find his sister some non-lethal uses for her skills. It’s comforting, in an odd way, to know that she won’t let anybody _else_ kill him, because Azula is one of the best firebenders in the world and there won’t be many that get past her, but he wants to believe that she can find joy in something other than violence. She won’t think she needs new hobbies, though, so Zuko’s going to have to figure out something for her. Just another item on a list of a million things to do.

Toph and Sokka leave not long after, heading to the kitchens to get more food, and then Aang and Katara go on a walk. Aang is always friendly, Toph seems to be fine with Zuko, and even Sokka seems to be warming up to him, but Katara is still so, so angry, and Zuko has no idea what he can do about it. That has to go on the to-do list, as well. For tonight, the Fire Sages turn up a map showing the current battle lines, a stack of paper and extra ink for Uncle to write with, and they get to work.

They’re still writing letters an hour later when a guard comes running up to the pavilion and bows. He’s a big, cheerful young man, and even then he makes Zuko a little tense, but he reminds himself that Uncle and Toph spent yesterday evening questioning the guards. They found none who knew anything about the attempt to kill Zuko and free Azula, and dismissed a few with ill will towards Zuko, so if he trusts Uncle’s judgment and Toph’s abilities, there’s nothing to fear from this man. “Karo, is it?” Zuko asks.

“Yes, Fire Lord Zuko,” the young man says, straightening up. “I apologize for disturbing you, but a woman has arrived at the palace gates. She insists that she must speak to Lord Iroh.”

“A lady, eh?” Uncle says with a cheeky grin that gives Zuko horrible, horrible flashbacks to his uncle flirting his way through Ba Sing Se. “Did she give a name?”

“No, my lord,” Karo says with a frown. “Would you like us to turn her away?”

“I don’t think I can turn away lady callers at my age, can I?” Uncle chuckles. Zuko buries his head in his hands. “Please, invite her in.”

“Yes, my lord.” Zuko raises his head in time to see Karo hurrying off down the garden path, then glares at his uncle.

“One of these days, I will impart a sense of humour on you, Nephew,” Uncle says, patting Zuko’s shoulder gently before standing up. “All joking aside, I think I will stroll down the path to meet her. I would rather rebuild the palace guard more before allowing unknowns into the Fire Lord’s presence.”

It’s a valid point. Toph’s eerie ability to know who’s lying and who isn’t has been helpful for vetting the palace staff, but going through people individually is a slow process, and he doesn’t really want to drag her away from enjoying her second dinner, or get too reliant on her hanging around for long. She’s one of the few people who seems okay with him, and he doesn’t want to jeopardize that.

“While we’re waiting for Uncle to return, can somebody please take these to the falconer?” Zuko asks, gesturing to the pile of letters building up by his chair. He’s not sure that this kind of thing is really in a Fire Sage’s duties, but a couple of them scoop up the letters and take them for delivery, anyway. Zuko watches them go, then lets his gaze drift to Uncle strolling down the winding garden path.

Karo returns with a woman wearing a hooded cloak. Zuko’s too far away to hear what the woman says when she lowers her hood, or get a good look at her face, but he can hear Uncle give a cry of delight and pick her up in a huge bear hug.

“Well, at least she’s not an assassin, then, eh, my lord?” one of the Fire Sages chuckles. The other two hurriedly shush him, hissing about inappropriate conduct, but Zuko _does_ feel a little better knowing that whoever this is, Uncle likes her, and apparently trusts her enough that he’s leading her back up the path towards the pavilion, a broad smile on his face. “Are you going to introduce us to your lady friend, Uncle?” Zuko calls once they’re close enough.

“Cease your speculation, it is unbecoming of the Fire Lord,” Uncle responds, though the lady herself laughs. “This is Ming, a former guard of the royal prisons, who was a shining beacon of warmth and kindness during my time there. Ming, it is my honour to introduce you to Fire Lord Zuko.”

“It’s a great honour to meet you, Fire Lord,” Ming says, kneeling and bowing deeply.

“Please stand,” Zuko offers, giving his Uncle a curious look. “She was one of your guards?”

“She brought me tea whenever she was on duty,” Uncle said with a smile. “She is a truly kind soul.”

“I couldn’t stand watching the other guards treat you like dirt, that’s all,” Ming insists. “My father served under you for years—he must have told us kids a thousand times about the time you held a whole city against the Earth Kingdom army with nothing but a hundred troops and a pot of tea!”

“Ah, that was simply a little trick,” Uncle chuckles. “I knew that General Bu was a cautious man, and would suspect a trap and hold back. I was buying time for our forces to arrive, nothing more.”

“Still, stories like that are why we all joined the army,” Ming insists. “With strategies like that, that won fights before they even started—Dad always said you’d be a great Fire Lord some day. My brothers, my sister and me—we all joined up to serve the Fire Nation we believed _you_ were going to build.” Her smile falters. “We were heartbroken to hear about Prince Lu Ten,” she says solemnly, bowing her head to Uncle.

“Thank you,” Uncle says quietly. “What of your siblings? Are they still serving now?”

“Well… my sister’s a guard at the Boiling Rock…” Ming started counting off siblings on her fingers. “One of my brothers is back home, living with his family just outside the capital. Got his leg crushed by an earthbender. My other brother was serving near Omashu, last I heard.” She takes a deep breath. “My youngest brother was killed in action three years ago. Serving with the forty-first.”

Zuko’s heart drops into his stomach. “I’m so sorry, Ming.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t be, my lord. It wasn’t you who deployed them…” She sighs. “He was only sixteen. He joined up as soon as the recruitment age dropped again, he was so excited. And then, when we heard they were deployed before even finishing training, we couldn’t believe it. We thought there had to be something we were missing. The Fire Lord is like a father to the whole nation, and what kind of father would do something like that to his children?” Zuko’s hand moves unconsciously to his left eye, and Ming nods. “Then I was promoted to serving in the royal prisons, and I heard rumours about your Agni Kai. Now I _know_ what kind of father would do something like that.” She bows her head to Zuko again. “Thank you for speaking up for them, Fire Lord Zuko.”

“I didn’t save them,” Zuko protests.

“That you cared at all matters, my lord,” Ming insists, going to her knees again. “It’s why, if you’re willing to pardon me, I would be honoured to serve _you_, and _your _Fire Nation.”

Zuko needs all the support he can get, and Uncle trusts her, but Zuko has one concern. “Of course, but what do you need a pardon for?”

Ming stands and looks sheepishly at Uncle. “Well… I appreciate your warning me to stay away from the prisons during the eclipse, Lord Iroh, but the other guards knew that I was friendly with you, so my absence during your escape was… noticed. A friend tipped me off that I was being sought out for questioning, and I had to split town for a while.”

Uncle groans, rubbing his face. “I am so sorry, Ming,” he sighs. “I meant only to keep you from harm, in thanks for your kindness…”

“I know,” Ming says with a smile. “It’s fine. I hid out at my brother’s for a while, but they kept looking for me around there, so I’ve been staying with a friend here in the capital. She’s been keeping me up to date on the news and rumours—she was _so_ excited when she came running home this afternoon to tell me that the coronation was for Fire Lord _Zuko_, and that Lord Iroh was there too!”

“Come have a seat—of course I’ll pardon you,” Zuko promises her. Uncle sits next to him with a smile, picking up the brush and paper again to start writing Ming’s pardon. “I’d be very grateful to have you join the royal guard. Honestly, we’re kind of understaffed right now after some of the guards tried to kill me.”

Ming sits, looking horrified. “I’ll guard you with my life, Fire Lord Zuko,” she swears. “The Fire Nation _needs_ you. Do you have any idea how people are celebrating in the city, after you announced that you’re bringing the troops home?”

“People aren’t upset that I’m ending the war?” Zuko’s just as grateful for Ming’s ear for the common people of the Fire Nation as her offer of protection. Ending the war isn’t just for the sake of balance in the world, it’s to protect his people. How Katara feels about him is how the world at large feels about the Fire Nation, after all, and with the Avatar on their side, the rest of the world’s anger from a hundred years of war could crush the Fire Nation. As much as he wants to prevent the Fire Nation’s armies from continuing to ravage the world, he wants to protect his people from the vengeance of other nations, too. All of which will be a lot easier if they don’t hate him.

Ming shrugs. “Word’s spread that the Avatar defeated Fire Lord Ozai, so some would call it quitting while we’re ahead,” she says simply. “Don’t underestimate how happy people will be to have their children home.” She winks at Zuko. “_Your_ children now, my lord.”

“Oh, spirits,” Zuko groans as Uncle laughs. “I’m too young to be the single father of fifty million people…”

“I have every faith in you, Nephew,” Uncle chuckles, placing a completed letter in front of Zuko. He gives it a cursory once-over, acknowledging that it pardons Ming of crimes of which she has been falsely accused and grants her a formal position in his royal guard, then nods and picks up his seal, prompting Uncle to handle the wax decanter for him so he can make it official. “Congratulations, Ming,” Uncle says, handing the letter over as soon as the wax has dried. “You’re a free woman, with a new job to boot!”

“Thank you, my lord,” Ming says, bowing her head and accepting the letter with a smile. “I look forward to serving your Fire Nation, Fire Lord Zuko.”

Her approval feels—_good_, in a way that Zuko didn’t know he needed. She’s not Uncle, who loves Zuko even when he gets things wrong, or Aang, who just wants to be everybody’s friend, or Toph, who doesn’t really have to judge people if she _knows_ when they’re being honest to her. Ming is just a normal person, one of _his_ people, someone he’s never met before but has heard about things he’s said and done and doesn’t think he’s a failure, or a traitor, or weak. She makes him think of the Fire Nation he believed in growing up—the greatest nation in the world, the greatest _people_ in the world.

He’s lost a lot of faith in his nation, in what it became under his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather. But right now, building the nation that he grew up believing in feels a little more achievable, so long as he has the people to build it for.

It’s nice to know that not all of them resent what he’s trying to do, but whether they like him or not, they’re his people. At least he has Uncle’s example to follow instead of Ozai’s on how to deal with _that_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ming's one of those minor characters that I like bringing back. She was just nice, exactly the sort of person Zuko needs around him right now.


	3. How To Adjust To Life After Prison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hakoda, Mai, Suki and Ty Lee have been a little out of the loop. It's a whole new world outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strap in, lads. This one is, as they say, a big yin. Like, 9.7k big. Enjoy!

Boiling Rock Prison is a vicious place, and Hakoda is more than happy to leave it, but he’s less than happy to be leaving on the summons of the new Fire Lord. He isn’t clear on _why_ there’s a new Fire Lord, but none of the guards’ gossip he’s overheard said anything about the Avatar winning the war, and the fact that he’s leaving Boiling Rock in chains doesn’t bode well.

He’s not the only one being suddenly transferred. Aside from a dozen guards, he’s also sharing the small war balloon with three teenage girls. They were already at the Boiling Rock when Hakoda was transferred there himself from a hospital-prison, and they stick out as being a good ten years younger than anybody else in the population. With a teenage daughter himself, Hakoda’s tried to keep an eye out for them, not that they seem to need it. A few of the men who were transferred at the same time as Hakoda tried to corner the girls on the first day, and Hakoda wasn’t even halfway across the yard before the three of them dealt with the problem themselves with eye-watering ferocity. In retrospect, the fact that the rest of the prisoners were giving the girls a _very_ wide berth should have tipped him off. The guards not responding to the harassment might have been another clue, but they don’t seem to respond to much so long as it doesn’t get too big or involve firebending.

One of the girls is eying Hakoda thoughtfully. She’s as blue-eyed as any girl of the Tribe, but her pale skin and reddish hair suggest she isn’t from either of the poles. “So,” she says when she catches his eye, “did I hear the guard right? You’re from the Southern Water Tribe?”

“Chief Hakoda. Pleased to meet you.” He’s tried to keep an eye out for them, but that doesn’t mean he’s actually gone up to introduce himself. The girls respond quickly to men approaching them unsolicited, and he likes his joints where they are. “Yes, I’m from the Southern Water Tribe. Are you from the Earth Kingdom?”

“Suki,” the girl says, waving. “I’m from Kyoshi Island—I’m the commander of the Kyoshi Warriors. I think I’ve got a couple friends from your tribe. Do you know Sokka and Katara?”

“Yes, I do.” There’s a distinct possibility that the Fire Nation already knows that he’s Sokka and Katara’s father, but he’s not going to risk telling them something they don’t already know. It won’t make his kids any more wanted by the Fire Nation than they already are, as the Avatar’s companions, but he won’t provoke the Fire Nation to try and use him against them. He can’t resist a proud smile, though, at the thought of his children traveling the world, helping the Avatar, saving lives, and befriending other brilliant young people like this girl. “I guess you’ve met the Avatar too, then?”

Suki laughs. “What a kid, huh?” She’s still staring speculatively at Hakoda’s face. It’s probably not looking great—his lack of patience with the bullying guards has earned him regular beatings, and he knows he’s lost a lot of weight, too. The oppressive heat and humidity of the Boiling Rock is hard on all of the prisoners, but for a man of the South Pole, it feels like it’s been wringing him out like a wet cloth.

“Oooh, do you think Sokka’s gonna have cheekbones like _that_ when he’s older?” one of the other girls whispers loudly to the third. It’s the one with _long_ brown hair who always seems to be smiling, and is often to be seen chattering away happily to her friends as if they’re sitting around a campfire together, not prisoners. “He’s already super cute, but _wow_!”

“Hands off,” Suki says, raising her fists, though she’s grinning as she does it. “I saw him first.” The third girl, the black-haired one who always looks bored, rolls her eyes.

_Sokka__’s even braver than I thought,_ Hakoda muses, looking from one dangerous girl to the other.

“No fighting! Settle down,” one of the guards barks, he and a second guard both taking up firebending stances.

“Awww, we’re just playing,” the cheerful girl says, folding her cuffed hands in her lap. Suki also rolls her eyes and slumps back in her seat with a frustrated huff. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet you, Chief Hakoda. I’m Ty Lee, and this is Mai! We’re from the Fire Nation!”

“You’re traitors, is what you are,” the same angry guards snaps. “Pipe down!”

“We’re not allowed to make conversation now?” Hakoda demands. The guard just scowls harder, and Hakoda can see the countdown to another beating ticking down behind the man’s eyes, but he’d rather it be pointed in his direction than the girls. They’re tough, they can probably take it, but they shouldn’t have to.

“Leave ‘em, Kyo,” the pilot of the small airship calls. “We’re just about there, and the Fire Lord’ll probably want ‘em to _talk_.”

“He’s not getting so much as the _weather_ from me,” Hakoda snarls. _Let alone anything else about my children or their friends._

“_She_,” the pilot corrects.

“Wait, what?” One of the guards looks around in confusion. “I miss something?”

“Yeah, while you were oversleeping _again_, Zai,” another guard laughs. “Pin got a letter from his cousin in the capital—she said they were preparing for Princess Azula’s coronation.” That gets a loud gasp from Ty Lee, and even Mai looks up with a look of wide-eyed surprise.

“Did something happen to Fire Lord Ozai?” Zai asks, still looking confused.

“Leading the war in the Earth Kingdom, I hear,” Kyo grunts, finally dropping his stance and sitting back down. “Bet he made the kid Fire Lord so he could get out the Palace and have some _real_ fun, eh?”’

“_Azula__’s_ the Fire Lord?” Ty Lee whispers. “Mai… do you think she wants us back?”

“Until Ozai comes back and sees us around,” Mai mutters. “Then she’ll be right back to dancing on his strings.”

“You will speak of the Fire Lord with the proper respect!” Kyo yells.

“Oh, I think she’s speaking of _Ozai_ with exactly as much respect as he deserves,” Hakoda says, spitting the name like a bite of rotten fish. Kyo’s temper, predictably, reaches its end, and he lands a solid blow before the pilot yells at him to calm down again. Hakoda works his jaw for a moment to make sure nothing’s broken, then sits back, swallows the taste of blood, and glares at the back of Kyo’s head as he goes to argue with the pilot about prisoner treatment. Suki’s also watching the man with murder in her eyes, but Ty Lee and Mai are looking at each other in some kind of anxious, silent conference.

He knows who Fire Lord Ozai is, of course, but it takes a moment for him to remember where he’s heard of Princess Azula before. On the day of the invasion, she was the one who stalled Aang from finding Ozai by fighting him, Sokka and Toph to a standstill—_during_ the eclipse. Another dangerous young woman, and not one that Hakoda’s looking forward to meeting.

Outside, Hakoda recognizes Caldera City, the Fire Nation capital, from the maps that he spent weeks poring over prior to the invasion. They’re drifting closer to the dark, jagged shape of the Royal Palace, and behind the palace he can see a huge, flat area that must have been where they kept the airships that destroyed Sokka’s boats after the eclipse. It’s empty now, except for a small group of people, but they’re too far away for him to make any of them out, let alone identify the princess—the _Fire Lord_.

“On your feet, scum! Prepare to disembark!”

He focuses on glaring at the guards instead as they line up him and the girls to meet their fate once the airship has landed. The guards stay seated, because the landing shakes the metal cart that they’re riding in, and apparently told Hakoda and the girls to stand just to watch them stumble. Bastards.

Two of the guards go outside to greet the group that’s approaching the small airship. The rest circle the four prisoners, preparing to lead them out to face the Fire Lord.

Zai peeks out of the door briefly. “Hey, isn’t that Prince Zuko?” he whispers. “I heard he got killed during the eclipse invasion…”

“You’re shitting me,” the pilot says, also peeking out.

“Look at that scar, you can see it from here!”

“Mai! Did you hear that? Zuko’s okay!” Ty Lee whispers in delight.

“All right, time to move!” the pilot calls. “Keep quiet, stay in line, and you _bow_ before the Fire Lord, got it?”

Hakoda holds his head high and follows the guards out of the ship.

At the forefront of the group waiting for them is an elaborate chair, bearing a young man with a huge, nasty-looking scar on the left side of his face and a large golden ornament in the shape of a flame in his hair. There’s a couple of richly-dressed women standing by him, though one of them is leaning on one side of his chair with an informality that’s odd to see in the Fire Nation. There’s an old man in similar red-and-black Fire Nation robes, and—

“Hey!” Sokka yells. “Why are they in chains?!”

“Sokka? _Katara?_” Hakoda says in shock as he recognizes his children. _They__’re_ not in chains, he realizes after a moment of terror; Sokka’s even carrying weapons. And Aang’s there too, the little monk smiling brightly, with none of the Fire Nation soldiers around him attacking.

“Captain.” The young man with the scar—Prince Zuko, they said—gives the pilot a dark glare. “I ordered the prisoners to be brought here for _release_. Release them.”

“These prisoners—they’re very dangerous!” the pilot protests.

“I do not believe that that is what the Fire Lord asked you, captain,” the old man says in a pointed tone.

“The F—oh, Agni.” The pilot turns to the other guards, snapping her fingers. “Release them! _Now_!”

They barely get the cuffs off of Hakoda’s hands in time for him to catch Katara as she runs up to hug him. It hasn’t even been two months since the invasion, but it feels like a century since he’s held his daughter.

“I guess you won, huh?” he comments, squeezing her tight and looking at Sokka, who’s slowed by a limp but is also grinning ear-to-ear. He nearly falls over when Suki flings her arms around his neck, but catches himself in time to hug her back.

Hakoda can wait his turn to hug his son again. It looks like he gets the time, now.

~F~F~F~

The weeks since the eclipse have been a bit of an emotional tsunami for Mai, not that she’s been letting it show.

First she was evacuated from the city during the eclipse, like some helpless little girl, because whatever Azula was planning with Ozai for the eclipse, she wanted the Dai Li for it, not Mai and Ty Lee. Mai doesn’t exactly _like_ Azula, who’s self-obsessed and bossy and casually cruel and lets Ozai use her like an attack dog, but at least things aren’t _boring_ around the princess. At least Azula wanted Mai around for her skill with knives, rather than as a pretty ornament.

(Zuko never seemed to want her around _for_ anything. He was just as happy to spar or eat snacks or talk about things they hate. He just wanted to be around _her, _even when she wasn’t demure and polite and silent, even when she was coarse and ugly and angry.)

Then she came home to find a break-up letter from Zuko on her bed, and when she stormed over to the palace to take him to task over it, Azula would only tell her that he was a traitor and long gone, along with his uncle. Mai didn’t _understand_, he’d gotten to come _home_, his father was _proud_ of him, he’d even gotten invited to a war meeting—why would he throw all that away?

(Why would he throw _her_ away? Why wouldn’t he _talk _to her? Did he think she couldn’t understand? That she’d turn on him?)

Azula never wanted to see her or Ty Lee anymore, focused on some major offensive coming up, and Ty Lee was staying with her family in their big, busy house (and Mai’s was so empty, her family were in the Earth Kingdom, not that the place would have been any warmer with them around), so Mai had taken to sneaking about the palace, practicing her stealth skills and listening to the servants gossip, and that was when she’d heard a woman crying, one of the kitchen assistants, confessing in whispers to a friend about a new task she’d been given, assigned by no less than the Fire Lord himself, and she’d been sworn to secrecy but it was unbearable, going to the prison every other day with no more than a little water and a mouthful of rice for that poor boy—

(Ty Lee had wanted to go to Azula. Mai found it hard to believe that Azula didn’t already know, or that she’d care either way. Mai had gone alone to question the serving woman she’d heard, and once the woman had fled for her life lest Ozai found out that she’d told, Mai had gone alone to the royal prisons, but she’d found Ty Lee waiting for her there. _“I knew you were going to try and do this on your own, but you don’t have to, y’know? Let’s go get Zuko!”_)

Then there was the cold, sick feeling of being arrested, of having failed to even get Zuko’s door open, let alone help him, of just _knowing_ that Ozai was going to kill her for this, that she’d gotten Ty Lee killed too. She didn’t know what to make of Azula having them sent to prison instead of executed. Maybe it means that Azula cares about them, but Mai wouldn’t put it past her to just want to drag it out. She wouldn’t put it past Azula to know just how _awful_ the Boiling Rock would be.

The worst part wasn’t the horrible humidity, no matter how much Ty Lee complained about it ruining her skin and hair. The worst part wasn’t the food she wouldn’t even feed to a boar-hound. The worst part wasn’t meeting the new warden and learning that her uncle had lost his job lest he be a traitor like his niece, and for all she knew her whole family was being punished for her crimes, and much as she didn’t like her family this wasn’t _their_ fault. The worst part wasn’t even knowing that she was locked up with rapists and murderers and war prisoners, because even without her knives she could defend herself just fine, she still had Ty Lee, and they’d even struck up an odd friendship with the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors. Suki had taught them a lot more hand-to-hand, and between the three of them they’d pretty soon taught the rest of the prison population to leave them alone, or else.

No, the worst part was the routine, the monotony, the endless, soul-crushing _boredom_. The worst part was the interminable hours in her cell with _nothing_ to do, nothing to distract her from thinking about how she’d gotten Ty Lee into this on behalf of a jerk who _dumped_ her, nothing to keep her from remembering that Ozai had burned half of Zuko’s face off for a minor insult and that if he committed some kind of treason and Ozai was keeping him _alive_—

Seeing Zuko alive, and sitting in some kind of palanquin chair while everybody else is standing, like an _asshole_, with the spirits-cursed _Fire Lord__’s crown_ in his hair, really simplifies a lot of things, because now she can just be angry at him.

Ty Lee bounces past her to hug Azula, because of course she does. She’s persisted in believing that Azula spared their lives because she cares about them, because Ty Lee wants their friendship to still be what it was when they were little kids, when they were naive enough to think that Azula was just being funny, not mean, and that she did things for anyone’s amusement other than her own. “Oh my gosh, Azula, your _hair_!” Ty Lee gushes. “It looks so good on you!”

“Well, of _course _it does…”

Mai doesn’t know what Azula’s done with her hair, because she’s not looking at Azula, she’s stomping towards Zuko, and the closer she gets, the more she’s getting the impression that he’s not as okay as she first thought.

It’s not a palanquin chair, it’s a wheelchair, and he’s got more than one scar on his face now, though none of them are as big or painful-looking as _the_ scar. He looks starved, his cheeks hollow and the bones of his neck too visible before they disappear under his robes. He smiles when he sees Mai, but he doesn’t remove his hands from being tightly folded under the sleeves of his robes. Mai’s worried about what he’s hiding, and she’s frustrated that he’s worrying her, because being angry at him was so much simpler.

“Oh, my goodness… look how you girls have grown!” the woman behind Zuko’s wheelchair says with a warm smile, and it hits Mai that that’s Zuko and Azula’s _mother_. She hasn’t seen the woman in years, after her own mysterious disappearance, but the kind smile, she remembers. General Iroh’s standing right next to her.

That they’re both here, _and_ Azula, and Zuko is the Fire Lord now, is all so confusing that all Mai can think to do is throw up her hands and hiss an emphatic “_what_?!”

Zuko looks from her, to Ty Lee and Azula, to where Chief Hakoda has one arm around the waterbender and is giving the Avatar a hug with the other, to where Suki is locked in a _very_ passionate kiss with the water tribe boy, who from the looks of it has missed her too.

“Prison food is garbage,” Zuko says. “Do you want to come have some lunch while I explain?” He smiles a little wider. “I’ll have them make fruit tarts…”

“You asshole,” Mai growls, poking him in the chest. Her finger sinks through far too much robe before actually hitting his chest, and that just makes her even more worried. He always wanted her to share her feelings, to express herself, but right now he doesn’t look like he could stand up to a stiff breeze, so she tamps down the storm and waits for explanations to come.

~F~F~F~

If anybody had told Suki a year ago—a month ago—_this morning_ that she’d one day have lunch with the Fire Lord, she’d have wanted to know what cactus they were drinking from.

But the world’s turned upside down. Aang defeated Fire Lord Ozai, and now the Fire Lord is Zuko, who Suki strongly suspects might be the guy who was in command of the Fire Nation soldiers who set her village on fire. There can’t be that many people in the Fire Nation with a scar like _that_. But instead of setting anything on fire, he ordered her release, and now he’s smiling dopily at Mai as they all tuck into the best food Suki’s eaten in months.

She has no idea how she’s going to explain becoming friends with Mai and Ty Lee, after they helped Azula take out her squad and steal their uniforms. After so long feeling so terribly alone in that horrible, humid prison, it had been nice to see somebody her age, somebody she _knew_, and under the circumstances, that their personal connection was having fought each other in the past didn’t seem to matter so much. Before she knew it, Ty Lee was greeting her with a hug every day and she was teaching Mai hand-to-hand techniques during their free time. They weren’t her_ squad_, but it was still nice to have somebody at her back whenever new prisoners arrived and decided that the teenage girls looked like easy meat.

But now they’ve gone from waking up in their cells for a breakfast of mouldy rice to sitting on pillows, eating fruit tarts and sweet buns, drinking tea brewed for them by the Fire Lord’s uncle, and listening to Aang’s incredible tale of how he defeated Fire Lord Ozai. Then Sokka and Katara and Toph explain how they took out the Fire Nation air fleet, though early on in the explanation Katara addresses Chief Hakoda as “Dad” and Suki is so freaked out by realizing that the guy isn’t just a senior member of Sokka’s tribe, he’s Sokka’s _father_, and Suki made out with Sokka _in front of him_, that she misses most of that story. They then get a much briefer and somewhat vague story from Zuko about how Azula let him out of prison and handed off the crown.

“Whaaaat? Azula, that’s so sweet of you!” Ty Lee gasps. Suki remembers Azula, and _sweet_ is not a description she would ever apply to the princess, who seems content to let Ty Lee hug her but is otherwise mostly ignoring the rest of them. Suki’s trying to ignore her, too.

“It’s only temporary,” Azula says idly. “Father left the nation in _such_ a mess, and cleaning it all up looks _so_ boring. I’ll take my throne back later.”

Suki has reassessed her opinions of Mai and Ty Lee over the past few weeks, but she is not going to be reassessing her opinion of Azula in any way whatsoever. She _tortured_ Suki, and Suki could handle the beatings and the threats and the starvation, but then Azula started torturing her _squad_, too, holding fire to the most sensitive patches of skin like the palms of their hands and the soles of their feet and the insides of their elbows, demanding that Suki tell her about the Avatar, and she had to grit her teeth and listen to her friends fighting not to scream—

“Hey,” Sokka says softly, squeezing Suki’s hand. “You okay?”

She’s not okay. She doesn’t get why Azula is _here_, why they’re letting her run around free when she _just said_ that she’s plotting to take back the throne, or why _Zuko__’s_ here and they’re just letting him be Fire Lord after he chased Aang around the world—

Sokka’s still giving her a worried look. She takes a deep breath, pushes the fear and anxiety into a box and pushes it aside, and considers the fact that she just got out of prison. This morning, she thought the Fire Lord was still Ozai, but apparently he’s been deposed for over a week, and the crown has changed heads twice. She doesn’t have all the information right now, but Sokka and Katara and Aang do, and she trusts them, so she has to trust that they know what they’re doing. “I’ll be fine,” she promises, squeezing his hand. “A lot’s happened, that’s all.”

“If you’re done eating, why don’t I show you girls to the baths here?” Suki hasn’t quite picked up who the beautiful middle-aged woman sitting between Zuko and Azula is—Ty Lee greeted her with a big hug and a delighted shriek of “Lady Ursa!”, but Suki doesn’t know enough about the Fire Nation nobility to guess who she actually _is_. The woman has a friendly enough smile, but that doesn’t mean anything from the Fire Nation. Suki knows enough history to know that the Fire Nation can smile at your face while stabbing you in the back.

“I could go for a real bath,” Mai says, making a face as she picks at a clump in her long hair. “The showers in prison are _gross_.” Suki would never let her hair get that horribly long, but she agrees with the feeling anyway. She wouldn’t say no to some new clothes, either.

“While the girls are getting a bath, I’d like to talk to you, Chief Hakoda,” Zuko says. “Sokka helped me come up with a list of the people who were involved in the invasion on the day of the eclipse, so I can get them released, but I’d appreciate it if you could tell me more about what happened to you and your men after you were arrested…”

“Ugh, this is going to be _painfully_ dull,” Azula groans, standing up. “I think I could use a relaxing soak myself.”

“It’s been so long since the three of us got to spend time together!” Ty Lee says happily. “Won’t it be great to get to hang out and relax now that the war’s over?”

Suki made friends with Mai and Ty Lee for prison, that’s all. They were in the same situation as her, and good allies against a rock full of the kind of people that even the Fire Nation consider scum, but now they’re all free and she’s with her real friends again, and it looks like they are too. It hurts, a little, but Suki can box that away, too.

But there’s _no_ way she’s sharing a bath with _Azula_.

“I’ll stay here,” she says, leaning against Sokka’s side. “I need to talk to the new Fire Lord about finding my squad, too.”

“Awww! Are you sure?” Ty Lee complains. Mai looks at Suki for a long moment, then looks at Azula, then gives Suki a nod.

“Oh, good, we don’t have to share the water with a filthy peasant,” Azula sighs. “Come on, girls, you look _awful_…”

“Azula, she’s a military commander and our _guest_,” Zuko points out. Azula just rolls her eyes and walks away.

“You and I are gonna have a _long_ conversation later,” Mai growls, pointing at Zuko. “In _private_.”

“Did you really break up with her by a _pillow letter_?” Ty Lee giggles, causing Mai to turn red and drag the other girl away.

Zuko also turns red as Lady Ursa stands up, giving him an amused look. “A pillow letter, Zuko?” she asks. “Really?”

“Not like _that_, Mom, I swear,” Zuko groans. Lady Ursa smiles again—she’s Zuko and Azula’s _mother_, by the spirits, that friendly smile _definitely_ hides knives—and walks away with the other girls. Zuko’s uncle is chuckling now, but quickly composes himself when the Fire Lord gives him a frustrated look. “Anyway… yes, Commander Suki, of course, we’ll release your warriors. And, I, uh… I owe you an apology. I think I burned down your village once. Sorry.”

“_Sorry_?” Suki says incredulously. “You think _sorry_ makes up for what you’ve done to my people? To the _world_?!”

“No! No, obviously, not, just…” Zuko rubs his face, taking his hands out of his sleeves for the first time and revealing that they’re covered in bandages. She’s starting to suspect that the guy’s not rolling around in a wheelchair because he’s too self-important to walk, but that doesn’t meant that Suki’s going to cut him any slack. Plenty of people have been hurt fighting in this war. Plenty of people who _weren__’t _fighting, too. “I know the Fire Nation’s done a lot that I have to make up for. There aren’t any strings attached to me releasing you and your warriors. I just… want you to believe that I mean it when I say I’m going to try and make things right.”

Suki doesn’t know if she _can _believe that. Not from the brother of Azula, the son of Ozai, the heir of Sozin. The guy who burned down her _neutral_ village.

“Sokka? Katara?” Hakoda asks, looking to his kids. “You know the new Fire Lord better than I do. What do you think?”

Sokka rubs his chin. “Look… not gonna lie, Zuko, we haven’t had the best time with you, and we don’t have a lot of reasons to trust you,” he says. “But we trust Iroh, and he trusts you, and you brought Dad and Suki back, so…” He squeezes Suki’s hand, giving her a reassuring smile.

It’s a chain. Suki can’t trust Zuko, and she doesn’t know Iroh, but she trusts Sokka, who trusts Iroh, who trusts Zuko. She’s not sure if that’s enough to keep her people safe, but that’s what she needs to think about above all right now. She has a chance to negotiate with the new Fire Lord, with the Avatar himself right here to mediate, and she can’t pass up something like that.

“For what it’s worth, this guy is, like, _boringly_ sincere,” Toph says, pointing at Zuko. “He’s not like his sister. His heartbeat’s not clockwork.” She turns in Zuko’s direction a little. “Honestly? You sound so stressed out all the time it’s stressing _me_ out. Maybe you should go have a nap or something.”

Zuko actually laughs at that, though in a really tired way. “Later,” he says.

“I will hold you to that, Nephew,” Iroh says, patting Zuko’s shoulder. “Chief Hakoda. Commander Suki. The release of the invasion force and the Kyoshi Warriors is something we intend to work towards as a goodwill gesture, and a first step towards righting the wrongs that the Fire Nation—and our family, as its leaders—have committed against the world. But we would also appreciate your insight, if you choose to share it, on steps towards building a true peace with the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes.”

“Well… I can’t speak for the Northern or Foggy Swamp tribes…” Hakoda rubs his chin in a way that’s so _exactly_ like Sokka that it makes Suki smile. “I may be chief of my tribe and of the combined fleet, but I can’t fully speak for my people without speaking _with_ my people. But I suppose one of the most important questions for the South is…” He glances at Katara with a sad look. “What happened to our waterbenders? Are any still alive for you to return to us?”

Iroh grimaces, which does not bode well. “No,” he admits. “There was an escape once, years ago, after which Fire Lord Azulon had the remaining imprisoned waterbenders executed. The standard orders for ships raiding in the South was then changed from capture to kill on sight of a waterbender. I’m sorry.”

Hakoda sighs. “The Fire Nation took things you cannot return,” he says levelly. “Our waterbenders. Our culture. Our loved ones. For us, peace may well be just that you leave us alone and give us time to rebuild our lives without the fear of raids hanging over our heads.”

Zuko nods. His eyes flicker to Katara. “It might not mean much coming from me,” he says quietly, “but I understand that you lost your wife in a Fire Nation raid, Chief Hakoda. I just want to say that I’m sorry—”

“Don’t you _talk_ about Mom!” Katara yells, slamming her hands on the table. “Don’t you even _think_ about her! I told you about her when—you _lied_, you said you’d lost your Mom too, you were just lying to get my trust and your Mom’s _fine_, you get her back and we never—you can _never _make something like that _right!__” _There are angry tears in her eyes now, and Suki’s feeling angrier by the minute herself. The Fire Nation is deceptive, but using a loss like that to betray somebody’s trust? That’s _low_.

“I wasn’t trying to—I didn’t _know _Mom was okay then, I—” Zuko buries his face in his hands with a groan. His uncle puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder, which just makes the guy look even _more_ despondent. “Ba Sing Se was the worst mistake of my life, and I’m really, truly sorry,” he sighs. “Is there _anything_ I can do to make you believe that I’m _trying _to do the right thing _now_?”

“If the sentiment is genuine, young man, then… I appreciate the good intentions,” Hakoda says quietly, reaching out to grip his daughter’s arm, “but as my daughter has told you, some things can’t be made right. Killing another warrior on the field of battle is something I can understand, and even seeing waterbenders as dangerous enough to target, much as I don’t like it. But my wife wasn’t a warrior or a waterbender, and a Fire Nation soldier still broke into our home and killed her. There isn’t anything you can do to make that right. Please don’t insult her memory by trying.”

Zuko just nods, apparently deciding that opening his mouth at this point is only going to be more trouble.

“I can’t speak for the whole Earth Kingdom,” Suki says, trying to swallow her anger, trying to remember her people, “only Kyoshi Island. But just being left alone probably isn’t going to be enough. When innocent people get killed, there’s a blood price to pay. I hope you’ve got plenty of gold to spare, Fire Lord, because a _lot_ of innocent blood’s been spilled.”

“If there was one thing Ozai did well, it was fill the coffers,” Iroh mutters. He stands up, withdrawing some paper, a brush and an ink box from his robes and laying them on the table. “I think it best that the Fire Lord and I excuse ourselves now. Please leave us the names of all those you wish for us to release.”

Zuko opens his mouth, then closes it, nods, and folds his arms back under his sleeves again. He has a thoughtful look on his face as his uncle wheels him out of the room.

“Okay, I need a clearer explanation,” Suki says, rounding on Sokka. “_Why_ is he the Fire Lord?”

“I know, we wanted Iroh,” Sokka says with a shrug. “He trained Aang in firebending so he can defeat Ozai. But Iroh says the Earth Kingdom won’t sign a peace treaty with him…”

“They _won__’t,” _Toph insists. “He’s _General Iroh_. He broke the walls of Ba Sing Se! But nobody’s heard of Zuko except _us_.”

“He turned on Ozai,” Aang adds. “I think he wants to do the right thing, he just doesn’t know how. That’s why he needs our help!”

“He doesn’t know how to do the right thing because he’s a _bad person, _Aang,” Katara insists. “He’s working with Azula!”

“I dunno… Azula’s all burny-burny schemy-schemy, but I never got the impression from Zuko that he plans all that well,” Sokka admits. “Remember that time he tried to kidnap Aang, but his escape plan was running into a blizzard?”

Hakoda raises an eyebrow. “I’m amazed he’s still _alive_,” he says, shaking his head.

“I don’t know if Zuko’s planning anything with Azula,” Sokka continues. “He’s her big brother. Maybe he’s just… trying to look out for her, you know?”

“None of this is comforting when his sister is _Azula_,” Suki points out. “You already kicked his ass, we could easily remove him—isn’t there _anybody_ else we can put on the throne?”

“We… didn’t give him those injuries,” Aang says quietly. “Ozai did.”

“We still don’t know exactly what happened between him and Ozai,” Sokka adds solemnly, “but we know it involved him getting locked up and tortured by his own dad.”

Hakoda inhales sharply. Zuko was an enemy, maybe still is, but _that_ isn’t something Suki would wish on _anybody_. She could stand up to Azula torturing her, because Azula is her enemy and Suki _hates_ her, so the combination of training and love of her friends and sheer _spite_ carried her through, but being tortured by somebody who _should_ be your ally—somebody who should love you? Everything Suki hears about the Fire Nation just reveals more and more evil. There’s no _end_ to it.

“Look, I know it’s hard to trust Zuko,” Aang says, “but if Iroh won’t take the throne, it’s Zuko or Azula. At least Zuko’s _trying_.”

“Plus, Uncle’s our friend, sure, but he loves Zuko,” Toph adds. “When he thought Ozai killed Zuko, he would’ve killed Ozai right back if Aang didn’t stop him. You think he’s gonna be any happier if _we_ do anything to him?”

“No matter what happened between us in the past, if we’re going to move forwards and create peace, we need to work with Zuko,” Aang says firmly. “That’s what _I__’m _going to try and do, as the Avatar.”

“I know, I just…” Katara wipes her eyes. “I _hate_ him.”

“We don’t have to like him,” Hakoda says gently, pulling his daughter into a hug. “You don’t have to sign a peace treaty with people you _trust_. But Aang’s right; we need to set our personal feelings aside to make lasting peace.”

“Only justice can bring peace,” Suki says quietly. Aang startles. “That’s something Avatar Kyoshi said to the first Kyoshi Warriors.”

“She said it to me, too,” Aang says, biting his lip. “She wanted me to kill Ozai…”

“It’s not just about killing,” Suki tells him. “People want peace, but we can’t just _forget_ everything that’s been done to us. They wiped out your people—don’t you need justice for that?”

Aang closes his eyes, then shakes his head. “That’s not what my people believed in. They wouldn’t want me to hurt people to take revenge for them. The highest good is to reduce the amount of suffering in the world, not create more.” He opens his eyes, giving her a pleading look. “Making peace isn’t just important to me as the Avatar. I’m the last Air Nomad. I don’t just speak for my people now, I _am_ my people. And making peace is what would be most important to my people, above all else.”

Suki admires the kid. She really does. She was trained to set her feelings aside in a fight, to keep things like fear and anger out of her mind when forming a battle plan and leading her squad. But this isn’t combat, when she has adrenaline to carry her and split-second decisions to make that might make the difference between life and death but they’re _simple_. This is soberly sitting around a table with people who’ve tried to kill her before, people who’ve tortured her, people who’ve hurt her friends, and making decisions about everybody’s future, and that’s just not her _job_ as a Kyoshi Warrior. None of this is what she was trained for.

Box it up. Focus. None of this is on her. She’s a warrior, not a king. Right now, getting her squad home is what’s on her. She reaches out for the paper and ink that the general left behind. “You’re a great Avatar, Aang,” she says, starting to write down the names of her squad. “I’m sure your people are proud of you. But you’re going to have to be ready to have this argument a _lot_. Because everybody wants peace, but a lot of people are going to be demanding justice, too.”

Aang nods grimly. “I found a way to deal with Ozai,” he says. “I’ll find a way to bring peace, too.”

Suki hopes he can. She really does. She’s a warrior, but as much as anybody, she wants to _stop_ fighting.

She boxes up that wish too, where it can’t distract her. So long as people like Azula are still in the world, nobody is safe.

~F~F~F~

This is something that Ty Lee wishes people would understand about being the nice one: it’s very, very difficult.

She wasn’t nice when she was a little kid. None of the seven Ty sisters were. By the time they were four years old, they’d already had enough.

As soon as they learned to talk, they were trained to sing in seven-part harmony. As soon as they learned to walk, they were trained to dance together. For as long as they could remember, they were expected to perform, on a regular basis, for the curious people who flocked from all over the Fire Nation to see the miracle of septuplets. At four years old, they didn’t grasp quite how amazing it was that their mother had carried and given birth to them, and neither did they remember the one-roomed shack that their peasant parents had lived in before their miraculous children earned them a fine room in the capital, where all the nobility, including the Royal Family, could behold the incredible family, like animals in the royal zoo. At four years old, the sisters were only just starting to grasp the idea that each was supposed to have her _own_ name, instead of sharing seven Ty names as they shared identical clothes.

First, they tried each picking a colour—they had many identical sets of outfits, but in different colours, so they could be arranged like a rainbow. They agreed that each of them would pick one colour and one name. Pink meant she was Ty _Lee_, and being Ty Lee meant she wore pink. She was happy with that. She liked pink.

It didn’t work. They explained their system to their parents, and since they were big enough to help choose their clothes they could make sure that they wore the same colours every day, and their parents _still_ couldn’t remember which of them was which. They explained it again and again and again, and their parents nodded and smiled and then forgot again.

Clearly, the colours weren’t enough. Some time after, though, they started attending the Royal Academy for Girls, and taking lots of classes in new and interesting things, and that gave them some new ideas.

In music class, they each picked different instruments to learn. Lee wanted the flute, but Lin claimed it first, so Lee got the shamisen instead, and she got pretty good at it, too. Their parents were delighted to see them perform together, but even though the sisters all had their own instruments _and_ their own colours, people _still_ couldn’t tell them apart. They needed to take it further.

After school, instead of practising their lessons together, they started going off alone to do different things. Lat would swim in the garden pond with the turtle-ducks and goldkoi until she could swim the fastest and hold her breath the longest. Lum would go through stacks of paper until she knew the most origami and could make things the fastest, her fingers growing clever and nimble. Lin kept practising her flute, and Liu her harp, but because one was a wind instrument and one was strings they could learn different music, and Lin learned how to breathe so she could play or talk or sing without stopping for breath, while Liu got strong hands and tough fingers. Lao danced even more, learning famous solo dances and making up her own and moving with grace and beauty even when she wasn’t dancing. Woo had a good memory, so she learned jokes and stories and songs, as well as _all_ the gossip at school. And Lee loved their acrobatics lessons, so she kept practising, learning harder and harder stretches until she could twist her body far further than any of the others, walking on her hands as often as her feet to perfect her balance.

Even with all of them having their own _things_, their parents still couldn’t remember the right names, but the other girls at school could. They started making their own friends, and getting their own reputations as different people, and then Woo, by accident, discovered a new way to tell them apart.

Woo was good at jokes, and knew so many that she was good at making up her own, and she was _really_ good at making up mean ones, though they were so funny that most people didn’t mind that she was making jokes about them. One day, Lee heard some other girls calling Woo “the mean one”. She thought Woo might be sad about it, but when she told her sister, Woo laughed and got excited and started coming up with even meaner jokes.

Lee didn’t like the idea of being mean, but she liked the idea of being nice. Maybe her parents would be able to tell her apart if, as well as being the pink one and the acrobatic one, she was also the nice one.

The next day, committed to this course of action, she walked into her calligraphy class and asked the princess, who everybody was kind of scared of and didn’t seem to have any friends, if she wanted to be Ty Lee’s.

That’s what Ty Lee wishes people would understand about being the nice one. She isn’t nice because she’s stupid, or naive, or blind to the faults of people around here. She’s the nice one because, of all the things she could be in the world, that’s what she decided to be.

Being the nice one has never been _easy_. It’s not easy to assume the best of people like Azula, knowing that she often _doesn__’t_ mean well, and that other girls started avoiding Ty Lee because Azula can be possessive, but she works hard to find the bright side. She could still hang out with other girls when Azula wasn’t around, because people still knew she was the nice one. Being friends with Azula meant getting to play in the gardens of the royal palace, which are _so_ beautiful. And Azula, when she found out Ty Lee couldn’t fight, introduced her to a master of chi-blocking, and Ty Lee hopes she did that because she understands that Ty Lee’s the nice one. She’s not naive, the world is at war and she’s friends with the princess, and that means fighting was always a possibility, but she loves that Azula gave her the chance to learn a fighting style where she can win without killing or even really hurting anybody. She got to learn lots of other fun things too, about meditation and energies and auras, though Azula was never interested in those.

It’s not always easy to hang out with Mai, who’s never happy, but being unhappy with a friend has to be better than being unhappy alone. Ty Lee doesn’t like being confused for her sisters, but she _does_ love her sisters and can’t imagine being without them, and Azula at least had Zuko to play with before coming to school, but Mai was always so alone. Still, Ty Lee knew she’d found a true friend when some older girls bullied her into crying by threatening to spread terrible rumours about Ty Lee using her looks to do _things_ with older boys, and then Mai stepped in and cut the older girls down with insults so mean that they would have made Woo gasp. Mai isn’t the nice one, so she can do things like that, and she _does_, when being nice isn’t enough. Ty Lee wishes it was, but she does _know _it isn’t, and when it isn’t, she knows Mai has her back.

(Azula might have defended Ty Lee too, but she would have gone too far. There would have been flames. Watching the older girls stomp away red-faced was funny, but seeing them get _hurt_ wouldn’t have been.)

She was _terrified_ to go break out Zuko with Mai, she _knew_ it could all go horribly wrong and they could get in the worst kind of trouble, but as always, she swallowed her fear and did her best to be kind, to be helpful, to do the right thing, because that’s who she wants to be. Because she knows Mai would do the same thing for her. Because Zuko is her friend too, even if she hasn’t spent as much time with him as Azula or Mai. And because Zuko makes Mai _happy_, and that matters to Ty lee.

They _did_ get in trouble, and she thought she was going to _die_, and she was so, _so_ scared, but then Azula had them sent to prison again, and Ty Lee has chosen to believe that it’s because Azula cares. Prison wasn’t fun, but she had Mai, and she got to make a _new_ friend in Suki, even though they used to be enemies. You can’t turn enemies to friends by being mean or unfriendly. Being mean isn’t what convinced Zuko to come back from Ba Sing Se with them, and that was a _good_ thing, he made Mai happy and even Azula was a little softer around the edges with her brother back, and now she’s even given him the crown, and it’s like the two of them are real friends again, and the Avatar and Sokka and his waterbending sister and their earthbending friend are all here too, not as enemies, they’re going to end the war together, and Ty Lee is determined that those are _good things_.

She knows they’re not, or that if they are good, they aren’t _just_ that. She knows things aren’t that simple. She _knows_. She’s _scared_, she was scared she was going to spend the rest of her life in that awful prison where even she couldn’t make friends with everybody, she’s scared now that she could still be sent back or killed, she’s scared that she’ll never see her sisters again, she’s scared, scared, _scared_, but if she lets herself think only of that, she’ll drown in it. It’s not _easy_ to be the nice one, it’s not _easy_ to be happy, she has to work _so_ hard at it sometimes, like she worked on her shamisen and her stretches and her chi-blocking, but she does it because that’s how she builds _herself._

It’s a little easier to be happy right now, in a hot, luxurious bath that feels like it’s stripping sweat and muck of the prison from her _bones_, with Lady Ursa working soap into her long hair for her while Ty Lee washes Mai’s hair. Ty Lee’s a little sad that Suki hasn’t joined them, but Suki and Azula aren’t friends, and maybe can’t be, and Azula _is_ here, just relaxing in the hot water and looking remarkably calm. Maybe it’s because her mother is back, and Ty Lee is happy to see Lady Ursa again, who was always so nice to them and never called Ty Lee by the wrong name, even after meeting all of her sisters.

(Azula thinks her mother thinks she’s a monster, but Ty Lee doesn’t believe that. Not because she doesn’t think people can be monsters, because they _can_. Ozai’s aura has always been a horrible, sickly black, something cold and dead that rots everything it touches, and even when Azula’s aura burns its darkest red it’s still nothing like _that_. Azula isn’t a monster, not yet, and maybe she never will be, and Ty Lee’s sure that Lady Ursa can see that. Even if she can’t see auras, she knew Ozai, too, and if she can tell Ty Lee apart from her sisters, surely she can tell Ozai apart from Azula.)

“I’ve gotta write to my sisters,” Ty Lee muses aloud. “They’ve gotta be _so_ worried about me.” She looks at Azula hopefully. Hope does not always come easily, but she does it anyway. “They… didn’t get in any trouble because of what I did, did they?”

“They ran away from home,” Azula sighs. “I thought they might come to break you out of prison, but apparently not. It was quite the disgrace to your parents—they had to move to the _colonies_!”

Ty Lee isn’t too worried about her parents. They’ll be fine in the colonies—her circus toured around the colony cities, and they’re really quite nice. She’s more worried about her sisters, but she tells herself that they’ll be fine. They’ve got each other, and at least they weren’t arrested. They didn’t try to break Ty Lee out of prison, but that’s fine, really—breaking into the Boiling Rock is impossible, and they would have been killed, so it’s _good_ they didn’t. That decided, Ty Lee smiles. “I’m just glad they’re not in trouble!” she says brightly. “I guess I’ll write to my parents, then. What about you, Mai? Are you going to write to your family?”

Mai shrugs. Ty Lee worries that she’s yanking too hard on the horrible knots in Mai’s fine hair, and that Mai wouldn’t tell her if she was. “I guess. They’re not gonna be happy that I lost my uncle his job, though…”

“Oh, they’re in disgrace too,” Azula yawns. “Not that they had far to fall, after losing a whole colony to one hundred-year-old man in a steel cage!”

It could be an attempt to insult Mai by bringing up her parents’ failures, but it could also be a weird attempt to console Mai, who doesn’t like her parents. Ty Lee chooses which it makes her happier to believe, but she doesn’t just _forget_ that the other possibility exists. “I’ve gotta write to my friends in the circus, too!” she says brightly, distracting the conversation down a new track as quickly as possible.

“Planning to run away to the circus again?” Azula asks. She still sounds calm, but there’s no such thing as a neutral question from Azula. It’s a good thing Ty Lee’s so good at the tightrope.

“Well, sure, someday! But I’m looking forward to getting to hang out with you and Mai again!” She smiles as brightly as she can. “Now that we don’t have a war to fight, we can just have _fun_ again! Ooooh, wasn’t it fun when we all went to Ember Island together?”

“I’m happy to see that you girls are still friends,” Lady Ursa says, her hands so gentle as she unweaves Ty Lee’s hair. “Did you really run away to join the circus, Ty Lee?”

“Yep! As a tightrope walker and acrobat!” Many nobles look down on circus people, but she’s sure Lady Ursa won’t. Ty Lee got invited to Ember Island with Azula and Zuko and Mai once, when she was about seven, back before Lady Ursa disappeared, and Lady Ursa loved the theatre there. She helped them make masks and costumes after watching a play, and helped them put on a little play of their own. “I’m looking forward to going back, but not just yet!”

“Of course not. I need you and Mai here.” Azula leans forwards. There’s a little gleam in her eye that Ty Lee remembers from Ba Sing Se. “You see, there was an attempt on Zuko’s life recently. I suspect there will be more.”

Ty Lee can feel the way Lady Ursa’s hands go still in her hair, and she can’t see Mai’s face from this angle, but she can see the way her friend’s shoulders tense. She’s mad at Zuko, and she has every right to be—breaking up with her by _letter_, really, Ty Lee tries to see the best in people but that was just _rude_—but she still cares about Zuko, too. “What happened?” Mai asks. Her voice is calm, her voice is always calm, but her whole body is suddenly a wound spring, like the kind she hides in her sleeves to launch knives.

“Guards claiming to be loyal to my father,” Azula says with a scowl. “They claimed to be here to aid me, and they meant to do that by killing Zuko. What they failed to understand is that if I wanted dear Zuzu dead, I’d kill him _myself_.”

That’s undoubtedly true. Azula is the best firebender that Ty Lee’s ever seen, and she’s accustomed to getting what she wants. It makes Ty Lee happy to know that Azula and Zuko are still getting along.

“Were they working alone?” Mai demands.

“We don’t know. I killed all of them,” Azula sighs. Lady Ursa’s hands tighten in Ty Lee’s hair before withdrawing quickly. “An oversight on my part. But I have no doubt that there are _plenty_ in the Fire Nation who still consider themselves loyal to Father, not Zuko, and others who will not favour Zuko’s plan to end the war, regardless of their loyalties. I intend to find out _who_.” She raises an eyebrow. “Well, girls? We handled the traitors in Ba Sing Se just fine. Shall we take on the Fire Nation?”

They found the traitors in Ba Sing Se so they could take control of them, so they could overthrow the Earth King and put Azula in charge. Azula said that she wants to take the throne from Zuko in the future. But on the other hand, Zuko looked in really bad shape, and there _are_ gonna be loads of people who don’t want the war to end. The war’s been going on a hundred years, and Ty Lee never really thought it was something that _could_ end, but now that she thinks about it, the end of the war would be _great_. People won’t be dying all the time, and the circus could tour the _whole world. _

Azula’s motives are probably mean and self-serving. But maybe they’re not, and maybe she _does_ care about Zuko. Ty Lee decides to take that chance, knowing that if she’s wrong and Azula really is going to kill Zuko later, she won’t be able to do anything about it by running away to the circus now.

Because here’s the thing about being the nice one that Ty Lee wishes people understood: it’s something that she decides to do, every day, just like her acrobatic stretches, and that’s why she can bend over backwards without breaking her spine.

“Of course we’ll help you protect Zuko!” she says, smiling at Azula, and then leaning forwards to smile a Mai. “Right, Mai?”

Mai looks calm, she _always_ looks calm, but there’s a determined set to her jaw as she nods.

Lady Ursa smiles, though it looks a little sad. It’s gone a moment later as she starts scrubbing Ty Lee’s hair again. “So, Mai,” she says, her smile turning mischievous, “about you and Zuko…”

Mai tenses up again, but this time it’s in sheer panic, and not the kind that’s _really_ scary. Ty Lee giggles when she catches Azula’s eye, and Azula smirks back.

Ty Lee decided who she was going to be one day, and became who she wanted, just like that. If she can do it, anybody can. Maybe, just maybe, a short haircut isn’t the only new thing about Azula, and no matter how hard or scary it is, Ty Lee’s going to give her that chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not realize that Ty Lee, in particular, would have so much to say but it turns out I have a LOT of feelings about The Nice Ones.


	4. How To Win An Argument

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azula always lies, even to herself. Zuko's never been good at war meetings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this chapter involves some victim-blaming over domestic abuse. Azula's still got a lot of shit to work out.

Azula stands in front of the mirror, looking critically at her hair. It’s not long enough for a topknot anymore, but what does she need one for anyway? After wearing the crown of the Fire Lord, going back to the band of a mere _princess_ seems so… inadequate. No crown at all seems nicely ambiguous. She’s not the Fire Lord, but she’s not _not_ the Fire Lord, either.

She sweeps a little hair back experimentally into a small twist, and then immediately drops it, because then it looks too much like the hairstyle of that stubborn little Kyoshi warrior, and Azula _refuses_ to imitate the hairstyle of a mere _peasant. _

(No matter how fierce a warrior that peasant may be. Azula admires resolve, and she can admit to being impressed when she encounters it, even in an Earth Kingdom commoner.)

She runs her fingers through her hair again, marveling at how it’s already dry, so soon after getting out of the bath. Azula likes the practicality of it. The classical image of beauty is a woman with hair so long that it trails the floor behind her, but who could _fight_ with their hair like that?

“Azula?”

In the mirror, Azula can see her mother standing behind her. She picks up her gold-embossed comb, turns, and throws it as hard as she can.

Ursa startles as the comb bounces off of her arm. “Azula!”

“Oh, you’re really here,” Azula sighs. “What do you want, Mother?”

“I just… wanted to come talk to you.” Ursa stoops to pick up the comb, fidgeting anxiously with it. “Azula… are you okay?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Azula says, folding her arms. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You do seem… happier, today.” Ursa turns the comb over and over in her hands, trying to decide how to say whatever it is she came to say. “Azula… Do you miss your father?”

“No,” Azula says shortly. Why would she? It’s not as if he’s dead, and he’s of no use to her _here_.

Ursa looks surprised. “You were… shouting about him yesterday,” she says tentatively.

“I was shouting _at_ him, Mother.” He wanted her to burn the letter ordering Mai and Ty Lee’s release, to leave them to rot. But when she disobeyed, he didn’t do anything to her. He screamed, he raged, but he didn’t _do_ anything. It’d almost be funny if it wasn’t so _disappointing._

“Azula…” Her mother approaches, a hand hovering tentatively in the air. “He wasn’t there.”

“I _know_ that,” Azula scoffs, rolling her eyes. “He’d have burned the letter himself if he was. It’s pathetic, really, to behave like he’s here when he isn’t.” Ursa just looks confused, now. “Don’t look like that, not when _you_ did the same thing. Really, Mother, snooping around the palace and bothering me when you were _actually_ in Hira’a the whole time? What _were_ you thinking?”

Ursa just looks even _more _confused. “Azula, love… maybe you should talk to Doctor Zho about seeing people that aren’t there.”

Azula’s fists clench. “No,” she snarls. “I’m not letting him drug me or tie me down again. I can deal with Father just _fine_ without _doctors_ interfering!”

(For a fleeting second, she wants Zuko. He wouldn’t allow this. She quashes that thought. _She _won’t allow this. She doesn’t _need_ him.)

“They want you quiet and docile and out of the way,” Ozai crows. “Is that what you are? A silent little pet, to be chained up when they have no need of you?”

“_You_ stay out of this,” Azula snaps, pointing at him. “You’re the whole problem! I’ll handle this _myself_!”

Ursa is looking from Azula to Ozai, and she looks upset, but not _afraid_, so she can’t see him. “Azula, you need help,” she pleads.

“Of course, even _I_ can hardly clear out court all by myself,” Azula says, turning to her armour stand and trying to remember which piece goes first. She hasn’t really had to pay attention before, not with servants to handle it for her, but focusing on remembering things like that helps her ignore her father telling her to burn everything down. It might be fun, but there’s no advantage to doing so right now. “That’s why I had Zuko bring Mai and Ty Lee back. We’ll handle things, Mother, never fear!”

“They’ll turn on you in the end,” Ozai growls. “They didn’t care one way or another for the Earth King, but they were traitors and fools for Zuko—”

“Shut _up_, Father,” Azula snaps. She doesn’t need _him_ to tell her that they care more about Zuko than they do about her. It doesn’t matter, so long as they still _fear_ her.

“Azula, please, I’m worried about you—” There’s a touch to Azula’s arm, and Azula reacts to an attack, blocking and redirecting the incoming hand and bringing her other hand around, full of flames—

Her mother backs away, wide-eyed. Azula freezes as she belatedly realizes that her mother wasn’t grabbing her to attack her, because Ursa never learned how to fight. She never learned to defend herself at _all. _She _let_ herself be weak and helpless and _afraid_—

“She’ll never learn if you don’t punish her for her insolence,” Ozai growls. “Do it! _Burn_ that lying little bitch!”

(”_You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher,_” he’d said, standing over Zuko, but Zuko _didn__’t_ learn, he’s just as much of a soft-hearted fool as he ever was, and Ursa hasn’t changed either, no matter how many times Father punished them—)

“You should know better than to sneak up on a _warrior_, Mother,” Azula snaps, snuffing out the flame in her hands. Ozai looks angry again, but he doesn’t do anything, to Azula or to Ursa. So weak now that he needs Azula to act for him, but why should she? What purpose will it serve? A little threat is sufficient to make her point, and Azula does so love to be efficient. “There will be _no_ doctors.”

Ursa sighs, tension dropping from her shoulders. Fear of Ozai’s ghost, or of Azula? “I…” She gives Azula a sad look. “I never understood you, did I?”

“Yes, that much is _quite_ obvious.” Azula brushes ash from her hands and returns to the armour stand. Breathes deep, focuses on remembering the pieces. The boots first, of course, how could she forget?

“It was never that I loved Zuko more than you,” Ursa says, looking down. “I just… understood him better. You’ve always been a mystery to me. And you never seemed to need me as a child, while Zuko…

“Needed all the help he could get?” Azula says archly. “Well, you’re very right, Mother. I _don__’t_ need you.”

(She _wanted_ her, a long time ago. She wanted her mother to smile and laugh, not shout and cry. She used to want a lot of things she can’t have.)

“I never understood you, either,” Azula continues. “Why you insisted on _arguing_ with Father all the time. What did you expect to achieve? You’re not even a firebender!” She points at her mother’s wrist, where an old burn scar is evident, from back when Father used his own hands. “I simply never understood why you and Zuko always insisted on doing things that got yourselves _hurt_.”

Ursa’s hand covers the scar, looking startled. “Azula… were you afraid of him?”

(She smiled when Zuko burned, because it was what he _deserved_, he’d brought it on himself, if he’d just behaved he would have been _fine_, he could have been fine if he did what Father wanted, just like her, why couldn’t he just be what Father wanted, even when Azula made every effort to help him he threw it all away—)

“There’s a difference between being cowardly and being _sensible_, Mother,” Azula snaps. “No wonder you understood Zuko better. You’re both _fools_.”

Ursa nods slowly. “Maybe,” she says softly. “I have been very foolish. But I think I understand you better today than I did yesterday.” Then, for some reason, she _smiles_. “Thank you, Azula.”

“_Utterly_ ridiculous,” Azula mutters, holding up the tassets and examining the ties. They’ll be difficult to do by herself, without any servants. “If you insist on _hovering_ so, you could at least help me with my armour…”

“Of course.” Ursa’s hands are surprisingly quick as she does the ties and helps Azula on with the rest of her armour. It isn’t as if Father ever wore armour that she could have helped _him_ with. “I went back to the theatre over the last few years in Hira’a, did I tell you?” Ursa says, smiling at Azula as she helps with the shoulderplates. “Some of the more complex costumes had to be tied together like armour. Do you remember those plays we used to see on Ember Island?”

“I remember you complaining about them butchering the plays, and then telling us the stories all over again by yourself,” Azula says. More nonsense. “Why _did_ you take us every year if you hated their plays so much?”

“Because I love the theatre,” Ursa says simply. “I love it even when it’s terrible. And because maybe, if I went back enough times, they’d get better.”

“Ridiculous,” Azula says. She dons the rest of her armour in silence.

(She went back to that terrible theatre over and over again, but never came back for her or Zuko.)

There’s a knock on the door just after they get to the gauntlets. “Enter,” Azula calls.

A guard walks in and bows. “Your highness,” he says, presenting a scroll, “a missive for you from the Fire Lord.”

“Thank you,” Ursa says, accepting the scroll and bringing it over to Azula. She’s spent too long among the peasants, thanking the guards for doing their _jobs_. The man bows again and beats a swift retreat when Azula smirks at him.

“Well, what is it?” she demands. Her mother unties the ribbon and hands the paper over. Azula takes a moment to snort at the sight of Zuko’s seal at the bottom—the Fire Lord’s seal has _so_ much less gravitas when it’s _Zuzu__’s _name set into the Royal Flame—and then scans the rest of it. It’s not in Uncle’s hand, so Zuko must have acquired a court scribe, possibly specifically because Uncle wouldn’t like him inviting Azula to the war meeting in an hour.

_There_ _’s no obligation to attend, since I know meetings bore you. But I wanted you to know that you’re welcome._

He also found a scribe willing to drop court formalities and write something that’s so _Zuko_ that he needn’t have bothered with the seal on the bottom.

(Father never invited her to anything. He was proud of her for asserting herself by showing up anyway, she was sure, and Zuko not doing the same would surely put him back out of favour, except then Father held up the whole meeting to wait for him. Azula couldn’t lose her father’s favour, she _needed_ to be the favourite, she had to say something that he wanted to hear—)

“How _very_ grand,” she says, setting the letter alight because she doesn’t need it anymore. “An invitation to Fire Lord Zuko’s first War Meeting.”

“You aren’t going to go?” Ursa says, watching the ashes drift to the floor.

“And miss the faces of the war council when Zuzu tries to get them to talk _retreat_?” Azula laughs. War meetings _are_ usually rather boring, but this one ought to be _quite_ the show. Anyway, if there was a mastermind behind the attempt on Zuko’s life before, the war council is a good place to start looking for somebody who could arrange for a whole team of assassins. Who doesn’t attend, who does, and watching how they respond to Zuko’s plans will be _plenty_ of entertainment.

Ursa tucks a strand of Azula’s hair behind her ear. “Have… fun?” she says, trying to smile but looking a little confused again.

(After so long without it, each gentle touch is like being hit by lightning, but in a good way, somehow. Touch from Father meant pain, and was to be avoided at all costs.)

Azula walks away, putting both of her parents out of her mind, focusing on the glorious simplicity of planning. She has an hour before the war meeting to anticipate outcomes and prepare for them.

And maybe to get Ty Lee to do her makeup.

~F~F~F~

It’s odd, sitting at the head of the War Room. The Fire Lord’s stage doesn’t have any way to get Zuko’s chair up, but sitting on his chair at all still elevates him somewhat over the generals sitting traditionally on the floor. He’s got Uncle at his right hand, and Azula at his left, to his surprise. She hates these meetings, and she has Mai and Ty Lee to catch up with now, and yet here she is. She gives a pointed yawn, but he can see that she doesn’t have her eyes fully closed, watching the generals as they arrive.

He wonders what she sees. She’s always been better at reading people than him. She looks at people and just _knows _how they really feel, and often what they’re thinking, too. When he looks at his generals, all he sees are professional expressions of calm, faces that he can only associate with the facts of their command, with only the clumsiest of guesses about how they _really_ feel.

He knows that General Shinu formerly commanded the Yu Yan archers and has a reputation for pragmatism, but he doesn’t know if that translates into a dislike of Ozai’s rule that might put him in Zuko’s favour, or if he’ll continue to serve no matter who the Fire Lord is. (He wonders what Shinu would think if he knew that Zuko was the one who broke into Pohuai Stronghold. Probably best not to find out.)

He knows that General Shu is the oldest general on the council and has been in service for more than half the war, that his father and grandfather were generals before him. That may mean that he’ll be ideologically opposed to ending the war that his house’s fortunes have been built on for generations, or maybe it means that his loyalty to the throne is worn too deep to break, regardless of who sits on it. Either way, his seniority will probably sway others who are undecided. (Two sons and a grandson have died in battle. Losing one son was enough to turn Uncle against the war, but it never seems to have changed anything in Shu.)

He knows that Admiral Chan commands the Eastern Fleet, and he now knows that the admiral looks just like his smug, self-important son. He doesn’t know much about the admiral as a commander, but can a man who can’t even teach some discipline to his son ever instill it in his soldiers? (He wonders if Admiral Chan knows that Zuko and Azula burned his vacation house down, and hopes that Azula doesn’t bring it up.)

He knows that Admiral Liang commands the Western Fleet, and that his job has involved more tsunamis than enemy ships. His ships spend as much time evacuating civilians out of the path of the worst of the storms every spring and autumn as they do patrolling the sea borders. Zuko hopes that this means that he won’t mind the end of the war, or may even favour it, because his knowledge of the Fire Nation’s natural enemy will continue to be crucial as long as there is wind over the sea. (Caldera City’s always been so shielded by, well, the caldera. Zuko knows that there are tsunamis every year, but it strikes him how _little_ he knows about what they do to his people who don’t have mountains and palaces to protect them.)

He knows that Admiral He is the new commander of the Northern Fleet, or what’s left of it after Zhao’s invasion of the North Pole. Zuko doesn’t know anything much about Admiral He, really, or what he thinks about what happened to Zhao, or even what he’s doing right now. Possibly overseeing the construction of new ships. He’s the youngest of the four High Admirals, and indeed younger than any of the High Generals, but he’s still got thirty years on Zuko. (At least Zuko knows _something_ about the others. He has nothing to work with at all when it comes to Admiral He.)

Of the four High Generals and four High Admirals, the one who catches Zuko’s attention as soon as he walks into the room is General Bujing. Zuko knows that he’s ruthless, so ruthless that he’d sacrifice new recruits as a trap to take out a dangerous foe. Zuko doesn’t know who suggested lowering the military’s recruitment age from twenty to eighteen, as it happened when Zuko was young enough that Azulon was still the Fire Lord, but he knows that Bujing was the one who suggested bolstering their army by lowering the recruitment age again, to sixteen, only a few months before Zuko was banished. From Ming, he knows it was mostly young boys recruited in that way who died in the forty-first. (Boys of sixteen, the age Zuko is now, but he hasn’t been a boy since he was thirteen, or maybe ten, when his mother left. He will be seventeen this winter, and the soldiers of the forty-first will be sixteen forever.)

Zuko really, really hopes that Bujing will stand against him, because he’s more than ready to be rid of the man. It’s not even about the part he played in Zuko’s disastrous first Agni Kai against his father; he knows, now, that Ozai would have done something like that sooner or later, and was just waiting for Zuko to give him the excuse. It’s just that Zuko knows enough about Bujing to know that a peaceful Fire Nation will not need the likes of him. He doesn’t know how many of these men it _will_ need, if any of them, but it’s nice to be certain about _one_ of them. (They’re _all_ men. Women have been serving in the military for decades, but they’re all men. Firebending skill doesn’t depend on gender, Azula is easy proof of that, yet the council is nothing but men, mostly old men, and Zuko is already tired of them.)

One of the generals and the admiral of the Southern Fleet are conspicuously absent, but Uncle has already briefed Zuko on this. While Zuko was recovering, before his coronation, Uncle already met with the War Council and introduced them to the notion of ending the war. There are scorch marks around the room from minor exchanges of firebending, and both Admiral Shen and General Liu walked out at different times. As they have not returned at the summons of the new Fire Lord, Zuko has to assume that they have abandoned their seats, and he will have to promote replacements. He’s glad that a formal part of the process is taking recommendations from those already on the council, because he hasn’t had time to think on who yet. There’s been too much to do. (He’ll have to find out where Shen and Liu have gone, too. He can’t just assume that they’ve walked out and disappeared. Somebody sent seven guards to kill him and free Azula. Was it one of them?)

Once all are seated, he takes a deep breath, reminds himself that _he_ is the Fire Lord now, that he _cannot_ speak out of turn, that they _have_ to listen to him. He cannot allow any of them to shake his conviction that ending the war is the right thing to do, but he does need their advice on _how_ to do it without leaving soldiers and sailors across the world vulnerable to retaliatory attacks from the Earth Kingdom or the Northern Water Tribe.

“Gentlemen,” he says. “Today’s meeting is for a very simple reason. General Iroh has attempted to open discussions on ending the war, but has been unsuccessful because a decision of such magnitude requires the authority of a Fire Lord. Well, I am the Fire Lord now, and I intend to end the fighting. A hundred years of war has not made the Fire Nation the greatest nation in the world. It has stretched us thin, destroyed our culture and society, and turned us into monsters in the eyes of a world that once respected us. It has to end. I am not interested in objections to this course of action, only plans on how to carry it out.” There, he hasn’t fucked up the part he rehearsed with Uncle this morning. He fights the impulse to look to Uncle for approval. Uncle plans to remain silent and impassive throughout this meeting, unless Zuko gives him a signal that he needs help, because there’s no point in Zuko becoming Fire Lord if everybody thinks that he’s just his uncle’s puppet. He still needs his uncle’s advice, but the Fire Lord’s orders must very clearly be his and his alone. To that end, he adds, “However, if there _are_ objections, let’s get them over with,” because Uncle cautioned him repeatedly against being inflammatory, but this is coming from a man who nearly got into two duels in a week in this very war room. If any of his council have problems, Zuko really, really wants them to just say it to his face and get it over with, instead of giving him fake obedience and then planning to stab him in the back. He doesn’t have the energy for proper decorum, but luckily he doesn’t have a reputation for it anyway.

“I have objections.” It’s General Shu who stands, thin and wrinkled but still standing tall, back ramrod-straight. “I have been a loyal servant of the Fire Nation for my entire life, and of the Fire Lord, but I cannot stand for these insults against our proud nation. Your lord father was on the brink of winning the war, and yet you host the very Avatar who struck him down and stole victory from us as your guest. You speak of _peace_ when what you mean is to spit in the face of every brave soldier who has died in the name of this country. I will not sit silent and endure this.”

Okay. He discussed this with Uncle, too. Zuko is the Fire Lord here. He is in command of this room.

“You have spoken, General Shu,” Zuko acknowledges. “You have, as you say, been a loyal servant of the Fire Nation for many years. You have well earned your retirement.”

“No.” General Shu gives Zuko an imperious glare. Zuko glares right back. Shu has gravitas and a very dignified sort of anger behind him, but he’s not half as annoying as Zhao and nowhere _near_ as scary as Azula, so Zuko can keep this up all day. “I have never shied away from my duty when my country is in need, and I will not do so now. It is with a heavy heart that I challenge you, Fire Lord Zuko. Agni Kai, for the fate of this great nation.”

Zuko doesn’t blink. He’s prepared for this, too, though he didn’t really believe that it would happen. How can anybody feel like a proud warrior when challenging somebody in a _wheelchair_?

The rules of Agni Kai are simple and strict. He cannot refuse. General Shu knows that. But he should know the other rules of Agni Kai, too.

“I accept,” Zuko says. There’s a quiet huff of laughter from Azula. “It’s nearly sunset anyway. Make your own way to the Agni Kai chamber, General, and I will meet you there.” General Shu bows and stalks from the room, head held high. The rest of the council also stand and bow, in response to the suspension of the meeting, and file out after General Shu. Zuko wonders which ones are rooting for Shu, which ones are rooting for him, and how many are simply waiting to see which way the wind blows.

“Choose me,” Azula says as soon as the doors close. “I haven’t had a good fight in _days_.”

Zuko entertains the thought for half a second, just imagining the look on General Shu’s face if he turns to see Azula, and then shakes his head. “Do you have any idea how old General Shu is?” he says. “Because I don’t. He won’t give you the kind of fight you want.” _And you__’ll go too far. We don’t need to _kill_ him._ “Uncle, will you stand as my second?”

“Gladly,” Uncle says, standing and starting to push Zuko’s chair out of the war room. They’re going to have to take a more circuitous route to the Agni Kai chamber to avoid stairs. The palace wasn’t built for a Fire Lord who can’t walk, because a Fire Lord who can’t walk, traditionally, isn’t strong enough to retain the throne. But they’re trying to be more than butchers now, and there _has_ to be more to leadership than being really, really good at killing. Or climbing stairs. “General Shu still has a few sons and grandsons in the military, and will likely stand one of them as his second, if any are in the capital. If not, I suspect either General Bujing or Admiral He may volunteer.”

Zuko nods, mentally moving Admiral He from an unknown factor to potentially a problem if he’s liable to side with General Shu. It doesn’t really matter who Shu chooses as his second, though. An Agni Kai ends when one combatant is wounded or killed by fire, and fire alone. If combat leads to a broken limb, then the injured party must have a second to finish the duel for them.

Uncle pointed out the laws to Zuko when they were discussing worst-case scenarios for this council meeting. Specifically, as written, a combatant may be replaced by their second if they suffer a broken limb. It does not, strictly speaking, require that the limbs be broken in the actual duel. And Zuko is in this wheelchair precisely because he’s still suffering from what Ozai did to make _absolutely_ sure that Zuko couldn’t run away.

It feels a little like cheating, but Zuko reminds himself that if Shu does not expect Zuko’s second to lead the duel, that means that the great general feels the need to prove himself in a fight against a crippled teenager. Ozai would no doubt approve.

~F~F~F~

War meetings might not be _that_ boring if Zuko is still provoking high generals to Agni Kai. Azula might attend them more often, at least until he has a more secure council.

Word seems to have spread in the time it took to get Zuko to the Agni Kai chamber, and the ranks of the morbidly curious are plentiful. Azula takes careful note of each and every face for later reference, where they’re standing, where they’re looking. She hopes Zuko has the sense to do the same.

When Uncle changes into the proper attire, she’s surprised to note that not only has he lost weight since his own imprisonment, he’s gotten back in shape, too. He looks more like somebody who could plausibly have once been the great General Iroh, rather than a complete disgrace to his house.

General Shu, by contrast, is thin and wiry, looking every bit the ancient decrepit. Admiral He is standing as his second, and it’s just as well, because Shu looks like one of his limbs will snap if Uncle _looks_ at it too hard. Zuko was right that Azula wouldn’t get a decent fight out of him. It won’t take the Dragon of the West to bring him down. Zuko could have chosen a salamader-puppy for his second.

The gong rings. General Shu and Uncle both stand and turn. Shu doesn’t look surprised to see Uncle, so he must have figured that Zuko would put up his second. His thin jaw sets with determination, and then he attacks.

It isn’t going to be a long duel. Shu is still a skilled firebender, but old and slowed. Uncle is old too, but not yet withered. Though Azula is reluctant to admit it, the ease with which Uncle controls the duel speaks to how great his skill is still. Shu attacked first, but he is quickly put on the defensive and remains there as Uncle backs him to the edge of the field. The conclusion of the duel is inevitable, and Shu is only dragging things out by refusing to surrender.

Azula sweeps the room to see what the fire-flake gallery makes of this spectacle. Who looks grim, who looks bored, who looks excited, who’s watching the duel, who’s watching Zuko—

There’s a cry of pain, but it doesn’t come from the field. The scream is cut off very abruptly when the man emitting it hits the middle of the dueling field headfirst. For a moment, stillness, silence and shock reign.

Then Azula puts her hands on her hips, glowers up at the ceiling, and calls, “I wanted some _alive_ this time, girls.”

“I got one!” Ty Lee’s voice bounces down as easily as the girl herself might if she wasn’t hanging onto a limp prisoner dangling from the rafters. “Oooh, he’s got such a _fancy_ bow!”

“I got one too,” Mai adds, somehow managing to pitch her voice all the way down to Azula while still sounding like she’s yawning. “Three-man team. Had to hit that one from a distance.”

“Assassins!” Uncle barks, which is unusually slow on the uptake for him. “Guards, get up there and retrieve the two survivors, _now_!”

They don’t have enough guards, that’s the problem, and that probably helped a three-man team make it into the high ceiling of the dueling ground, but what guards there are move quickly to fetch ladders and nets. Utter chaos erupts in the rest of the room, people shouting in shock, in anger, arguments and accusations flying. Azula glances back at Zuko to find him glaring at her. “They got out of prison this _morning_, and you’re already sending them to fight assassins?” he demands.

“Because of which, neither of us have an arrow in our skulls right now,” Azula points out. “You’re _welcome_.”

Zuko sighs, then nods. “Need more guards that can be _trusted_,” he mutters, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. “I didn’t release them just to make them act as bodyguards…”

“Oh, lighten up, they _want_ to make sure you don’t get assassinated,” Azula says pointedly. “Do recall that they got arrested in the first place for trying to break you out. I didn’t have to _make_ them do anything.” People care about Zuko, and they fear Azula. That’s just the way it is. Right now, it’s something she can use to her advantage.

She sweeps the room again, and catches Uncle doing the same thing from the far end of the dueling stage. Who looks grim, who looks angry, who looks scandalized, who looks disappointed—

“Fire Lord,” General Shu says coldly, “I would request a suspension of this duel until the matter is settled. I will not concede without fighting to the last, but this duel has been tainted by the sneaking, cowardly, underhanded use of _assassins_.” He looks utterly disgusted as he says it, like he’s speaking of the most revolting thing he’s ever heard of. He watched quite happily as Father burned Zuko’s face off, and he applauded the decision to raze the Earth Kingdom to the ground, but _assassins_ are where he draws the line? Azula is largely uninterested in the concepts of honourable combat or warfare—victory is what matters, _survival_ is what matters, she has no use for brave scars and noble graves—but the hypocrisy of those who do never fails to make her laugh. Several people flinch when she does. (People fear her. Even her mother fears her, fears her fire, fears her visions, fears her _power_. That’s just how it is. So she might as well use it to her advantage.)

“This duel will be resumed tomorrow evening,” Zuko agrees. “The war council will reconvene after. Please remain in the palace until then.”

“You’re too polite, Zuko,” Azula sighs as some people file out and others form small, muttering clusters as the guards set up ladders and nets to bring down the captured assassins. “Fire Lords don’t have to say _please_.”

“Fire Lords haven’t done a lot of things they should have over the past hundred years,” Zuko says. “How did you know there’d be assassins in the rafters?”

“I didn’t, but I could handle anything coming from closer.” Azula cracks her fingers. She didn’t get to fight today, but she _won_, and it’s only a matter of time before they can interrogate the assassins and find out who she won against. It feels good.

Zuko nods. “Thanks, Azula,” he says, _finally, _and he smiles at her.

She doesn’t need his invitations, or his thanks, or his _smiles_. Things like that always got him hurt, and he still hasn’t learned. But Azula has. She watches, she learns, and she _wins_.

That’s why she feels good right now. She anticipated, she prepared, she _won_. It feels good to be back in the game. It feels _good_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this ends too abruptly but I was really struggling with ending that scene and didn't want to drag it out. The point is Azula's emotional journey over the course of this chapter and her inability as of yet to grasp what it is she's feeling and why, because Azula hasn't had any scenes from her perspective in this installment yet and I wanted to check in with where she's at. Also explore Zuko's feelings on war meetings. I enjoy autistic headcanons for Zuko--his desperate desire for some straightforward communication is a big mood.


	5. How To Get Away With Treason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ursa and Zuko have an important mother-son conversation about treason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After however many years on AO3 I finally figured out how pseuds work... I'm keeping the Mangaluva pseud around because I know it's how a lot of people find me, but it's also, not too fine a point on it, a username that I very blatantly started using when I was 13 in 2005 and I've been using Chuthulhu more on other sites. (Does anybody even look at usernames on AO3 anyway)

Every morning, when he wakes up, Zuko starts thinking about firebending forms to drill after his meditation. It was one of the first things he did every morning for most of his life, from the time he could walk, even when he was wandering in the huge, empty deserts of the Earth Kingdom, even in that hovel in Ba Sing Se. Even when he couldn’t use fire, not where somebody could see him, he could still go through the motions, make sure his body remembered the forms so he didn’t have to think about them in combat.

Then the pain wakes up a few moments after he does, and reminds him that _it_ is all his body remembers anymore.

Uncle wakes when Zuko does and takes him through some meditation, breathing through the pain. With the threat of assassins evidently still very prominent, Uncle’s sleeping on a camp-bed next to Zuko’s, with guards right outside the doors to the Fire Lord’s suite and others in the private gardens outside. Azula has returned to her own rooms, but it isn’t long before she strolls in, congratulates Zuko on not dying in the night, and then turns to leave again with the stated intent of going to train. It’s a very Azula thing to do, to so casually twist the knife over the now-insurmountable gap in their skills, perhaps without even thinking about it. It’s another kind of pain to think of her flawless forms while he can’t so much as curl his fingers into a fist, let alone stand.

Mom’s staying in Azula’s quarters with her, trusting that Zuko is safe with Uncle, but she arrives a while after Azula does, because she’s bringing breakfast. They have enough servants back to bring things like food, but when she insisted on going to oversee the preparation of the coronation dinner, Zuko found out that she’s been making most of his and Azula’s food herself. She’s no firebender, but she’s still trying to protect them from a threat that, as she well knows, no amount of firebending would save them from.

(He wonders if Uncle knows that she killed Grandfather, but he doesn’t want to bring it up. The scraps of his family are only tenuously hanging together. There is only the most fragile of bonds between his mother and his sister, and a perhaps insurmountable rift between his sister and his uncle. He doesn’t know what he’d do about a rift between his mother and his uncle, too.)

With the breakfast comes a cup of medicine from Doctor Zho. It helps dull the pain, though it doesn’t really get rid of it, just… shifts it, sort of, keeps it out of the way so Zuko can move and think without it blocking everything out. He still needs help to get into his chair, to get dressed, to use the cursed _bathroom_, but he can put up with it from his uncle and his mother. He doesn’t really have many options, anyway.

“I need to go find out how the interrogations have gone overnight,” he says once his head’s clear enough that he can start ticking through his list of a million things that need done. “And those prison manifests should have arrived by now, we need the release orders for those Water Tribe and Kyoshi prisoners as soon as—”

“You have an appointment with Doctor Zho first,” Uncle reminds him. “You must look to your health first before you can achieve anything else.” He smiles. “Remember that you have help, Nephew. Will you allow me to check in on the interrogations and bring your messages?”

Zuko breathes deep, swallows frustration that he needs help with something as small as fetching letters, and breathes out, a tiny lick of flame on the outbreath that burns off some tension with it. The Breath Of Fire, at least, he can still do, if nothing else. “Of course,” he says. “Thank you, Uncle.”

“I’ll help you get to your appointment,” Mom says, standing up so she can push his chair. “Let’s go through the gardens. It’s a beautiful day, and the fresh air and sunlight will be good for you.”

Zuko doesn’t want to dawdle, he has _so much_ to do, he has to try again at talking to Chief Hakoda about peace talks with the Water Tribes, and he’ll probably need to ask for Aang’s help too to get talks with the Earth Kingdom, and that’s not discounting that they have to go through the whole rigmarole of General Shu’s Agni Kai again tonight before he can re-convene that war meeting—

But he’s not one to say no to fresh air and sunlight, either. He went too long without them, and even longer without his mother. He nods, and she takes them outside. Ming falls into step with them as they pass through the doors, taking Uncle’s protective place as he heads off to visit the royal prisons.

It _is_ a beautiful day, and the sun on his scarred, damaged skin feels _so_ good. It warms him to his heart, softens the sharp teeth of the pain, stokes the fire in his core that is struggling but does not, _will not_ go out.

“Zuko,” his mother says after a while, as they wind their way along the path, “there’s something that I need to tell you, as your mother… and I need to ask for your help, as the Fire Lord.”

Well, _that__’s_ ominous. Zuko looks around to see his mother looking anxious, her eyes flicking to Ming, who is looking steadily ahead. “Ming, can we… have a moment?” Zuko asks.

“I’ll scout ahead, sir,” she offers. “I know it’s just a garden, but we have been having that vermin problem, after all…” Zuko nods, and she marches ahead along the garden path, while Mom stops Zuko’s chair and walks around so he can see her without having to twist. She’s still refusing royal robes, but she has some newer clothes now, red silks that she’s crumpling anxiously in her hands as she waits for the space to speak freely.

“If this is about Grandfather’s death, nobody needs to know,” Zuko says softly once he judges Ming to be far enough away. Assassinating a Fire Lord, whatever the reason, is just about as high as treason goes, and there’d be calls for her head from across the nobility _and_ courts if word got out, but he sees no reason for it to. _If I__’m Fire Lord now, maybe I could pardon her, anyway, if it did come out now—_

(He knows, now, after his time traveling in the Earth Kingdom, what the word “grandfather” means to normal people. It’s hard to apply that concept to Azulon, a man who was always Fire Lord before he was family. Zuko remembers him by his royal portrait, as a terrifying voice issuing from behind a wall of raging flame. But he was Uncle’s _father_, and that kind of thing matters, much as Zuko wishes it didn’t.)

“Oh… no, no, it’s not,” Mom says quickly. “Not exactly… it’s about after I left.” She takes a deep, steeling breath. “It’s about Ikem. You… you said Ozai told you about him?”

(_”You should be grateful I tolerated you for this long. You can thank your treacherous slut of a mother for bringing you, some peasant’s bastard, into our marriage. You were never going to achieve _anything_._”)

“Sort of,” Zuko says. “He… implied you had another relationship before him.” Thinking about it now, making that accusation publicly would’ve given Ozai a good enough excuse to be rid of Zuko—he wouldn’t have to banish him, just making him a houseless bastard would’ve been enough to put him on the streets. He even could’ve had Zuko executed, and Mom too, once he was Fire Lord. Fire Lords can have concubines, but those concubines, and the Fire Lord’s legal wife or husband, have to be exclusive to the Fire Lord. Having other lovers isn’t as treasonous as actually _killing_ the Fire Lord, but it’s still pretty bad, and that makes something click for Zuko. “Mom… about Ikem. I think we talked about this in Hira’a, but I was pretty fuzzy at the time. _Was_ he my father?”

“No,” Mom says quickly. “We… we grew up together, Ikem and I. We saw each other every day of our lives, and we were talking about getting married. We loved each other, we wanted to be together, and we… we wanted to do things properly. No more than a kiss before the wedding. But, then…” She pauses for a heavy moment. “Then Fire Lord Azulon arrived, introduced me to Ozai, and told me that I was marrying him. It wasn’t a request.”

Zuko feels a little sick, hearing about his mother’s life for the first time. He’s never really thought about it before, what her life was before being his mother. If he ever considered it, he probably would’ve assumed that she was from one of the noble houses, raised all her life to expect that the head of her house would choose her marriage for her, perhaps even betrothed to Ozai in childhood. For nobles, marriage is for two things and two things only—solidifying relationships between houses, and producing heirs. Love and desire are for lovers or concubines, and not only do they rarely factor into noble weddings, some people consider it outright unseemly to bring such feelings into something as important as _marriage_. In that sense, Zuko had assumed every marriage was like his parents’, performing the noble couple in public and arguing bitterly behind closed doors.

(He was only thirteen when he was banished, and didn’t think much about marriage other than that it was probably going to happen to him some day. For the three years of his banishment, he thought of nothing but the Avatar. The court tutors he had after returning from his banishment had started bringing up the subject, mainly to stress that the Crown Prince can enjoy whatever dalliances he likes as a teenager, but they _cannot_ affect his future marriage. Young princes are kind of expected to go through pretty girls like fire flakes, and at first he thought that was all Mai was offering—an easy re-entry into the world of relationships and dating that he’d missed out on over the last three years, not counting that one evening in Ba Sing Se, when he was pretending to be someone else anyway. It was harder than he thought to pretend to be the carefree and care_less_ Crown Prince, but Mai didn’t seem to mind, and when her mask of emotionlessness slipped, Zuko found that he didn’t mind either.)

(He may be the Fire Lord already, but he’s still four years from being of age. Neither his grandfather nor his father ever arranged a betrothal for him, and now he is the head of his house and the final word on who he does and does not marry, when he does. He wants to put the thought down for four years, but he’s already making enemies, and it’s a tale as old as time in the Fire Nation that the right marriage is the key to powerful allies. He still doesn’t like to think about it, about sitting down with a list of noble girls and picking from them like picking out a pedigree falcon-hawk, and he _can__’t_ think about any of it before making things right with Mai.)

But commoners don’t have to deal with political bullshit, their weddings don’t change the fate of nations, they _can_ marry for love, and the idea that his mother had somebody she loved her _whole life_, only to be ripped away from him and forced into _Ozai__’s_ arms, is horrifying. “Mom… I’m so sorry.”

“Zuko, my love, you have done _nothing_ that you need apologize for,” Mom says, crouching in front of him, so he can see her face, so she can gently hold his hand. “I may not have ever loved your father, but I have loved you and Azula since before you were born. _Never_ doubt that.”

Zuko doesn’t. He can’t, not now that he’s starting to grasp just how difficult it was for his mother to come back here, to this palace, especially when she thought Ozai might be here. She did it anyway, for him and Azula, without hesitation. Even now, she looks _scared_—not of Ozai, now, but that Zuko might hate her, might doubt her. (Zuko understands. He’d rather go back under Ozai’s hands and Ozai’s hatred than see Uncle turn away from him again, than see his mother leave him behind again.) “I know,” he assures her. “But you went back to Hira’a after Grandfather died, right? Did you and Ikem see each other again?”

Mom smiles fondly. “He never married,” she says softly. “He waited there, all those years, just in case I ever made it back.” She scowls briefly. “He had to disappear for a while. After I… after I was _foolish_ enough to lie to Ozai…” She takes her hand from Zuko’s, clenching her fists angrily in her lap. “Ozai sent somebody after him. He had to disappear, then came back later with a false name…” The fond smile returns, faintly. “And a beard that did _not_ suit him. I was _so_ happy to see him again, but I was almost as happy to get to cut that silly thing shorter!”

Zuko laughs, and that makes his mother’s smile get a little larger. “If you two still love each other, after all this time… that’s amazing, Mom,” he says earnestly. “I’m happy for you.”

(Why shouldn’t she replace Father, to go back to the real love that was there all along? He did the same on the day of the eclipse, or tried to, leaving Father behind and going to find Uncle. He’s happy for his mother that she, at least, succeeded.)

“Thank you, Zuko,” she says, giving him a relieved smile and taking his hand. “As your mother… it makes me so happy to hear you say that. But…” Her face turns worried. “As the Fire Lord, Ikem and I need your help, because as far as I know, I’m still married to Ozai. I don’t think I was ever removed from the royal registry…”

And the Fire Lord’s wife _must_ be exclusive to the Fire Lord, banished or not. But Ozai isn’t the Fire Lord anymore, Zuko is, and that means he is the ultimate authority on disputed marriages, on disputed registries, and pardons for treason.

“I’ll talk to the Fire Sages about having your marriage dissolved and you removed from the royal registry,” he assures her. “I’m not sure, but I might even be able to have that backdated so that you won’t even have committed any crimes, but even if I can’t, I think I can still pardon you both and approve your marriage, if that’s what you want…”

Mom smiles, sighs in relief, a tear slipping down her cheek. “Thank you, Zuko,” she says softly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you about this sooner—”

“It’s been a busy week,” Zuko assures her. “Or two? I’m not all that sure, it’s been that busy.”

Mom laughs. “It has… but there’s one more thing we need to figure out,” she says, wiping her eyes. “And this might be more complicated. Ikem and I… we have a daughter, Kiyi. She’s four years old…”

It takes a few moments for it to sink in, that Zuko has a little sister—_another_ little sister. But this one hasn’t had Ozai reaching into her mind all her life, the way Azula has. Ozai doesn’t even know she _exists_, which is why she’s still alive. He wants intensely to meet this little sister, to know who she is, to see what it’s like to be a child free of Ozai’s influence. At the same time, he wants to keep her as far away as possible from the palace, from their family, from all the violence of the capital and all the twisted darkness of Sozin’s bloodline.

(He wants to see a normal family, one that loves each other simply, that isn’t made of twisted and broken parts barely strung together by a thread. He thinks of the easy affection between Lee’s parents that made the little boy make faces as if he was grossed out and happy at the same time. He thinks of families in Ba Sing Se coming to the tea shop because all they wanted was to spend time together, who sometimes said things wrong and then apologized and continued the conversation, whose every word to each other wasn’t judged and weighed like a battle plan. He thinks of the way Katara and Sokka ran to their father because they were so _happy_ to see him again. He hopes his mother has gotten to live that kind of love for the past six years, and he wishes he knew what it’s like from the inside, but that was never what he was born into.)

He wants to send his mother back to Hira’a, back to that happy family, and hide them, keep them safe, but in his heart he knows it wouldn’t last. Knowingly or not, Ikem and Kiyi have always been linked to the royal family, and hiding them away like a shameful secret will only turn them into one, and that’s not what his mother wants. If she wanted to keep them hidden, she wouldn’t be telling this to Zuko now. She wouldn’t have come back from Hira’a at all.

(Did he and Azula make that choice for her when they landed that war balloon? Did she really _decide_ to come back or, like Azulon betrothing her to Ozai, was it an offer that could not be refused? Zuko knows his mother loves him, he always has, but she’s always been afraid, too. And yet, she doesn’t want to keep her peaceful, loving family in Hira’a secret. She wants Zuko to know about them. She wants _them_ to know _him_.)

Well, if he can approve his mother’s remarriage, he can surely legitimize his own half-sister. As the Fire Lord, there are really unsettlingly few things he _can__’t_ do. No doubt there will be talk around the noble houses, but Zuko’s already too tired to care, and anyway, he intends to give them plenty else to talk about. “We might have to ask Uncle to help figure out exactly how to legitimize Kiyi,” he confesses. “He knows more about these family registries and royal protocols and stuff than me…” His mother looks surprisingly tense when he brings up Uncle. “He’ll help, Mom.”

“I never really knew him,” Mom says quietly. “I know he loves you, Zuko. I just don’t know if he’ll consider all of this… a risk to you, or an insult to the Royal House, or… I don’t know…”

“He won’t,” Zuko insists. Uncle’s a stickler for good manners, but if he ever cared about the dignity of the Royal House, Zuko’s pretty sure he stopped giving a flying boar somewhere between Lu Ten’s death and opening the Jasmine Dragon. He hasn’t taught Zuko much about managing a family registry, but he did teach Zuko to do the right thing, to be kind, and to protect the people he cares about. “I’m more worried about Azula…”

(If Ikem is a replacement for Ozai, Kiyi might as well be a replacement for his children, but Azula in particular. The little girl without Ozai, the child born to a father that their mother actually loved, the girl who gets to be a _girl_ and not a weapon. Mom still chose to leave that girl behind, to return with her broken older children, the ones who were twisted from the start by Ozai’s hand, but Azula sees everything in terms of the long game, the elaborate plot, the _threat._)

Mom winces too. “Why do you think I told you first?” she says ruefully. “She… I don’t think Azula really trusts me. But she trusts you, Zuko. After we speak to Iroh and come up with a plan, will you help me tell her?”

“Of course,” Zuko promises, squeezing her hand as best he can. There have been too many secrets already in their family, too much darkness. If his mother wants this in the light, legally free and clear, he wants to help.

(Azula sees people as a threat, an asset, or irrelevant. Their own half-sister will not be irrelevant. He has to make her an asset, but thinking about how to use a little girl as a tactical asset makes him feel queasy, because it feels like a thought that Ozai might have had.)

Mom leans forwards to kiss Zuko’s forehead, then gets up and goes back to pushing his chair to where Ming is waiting for them. “We don’t have to figure it all out today,” she promises. “I just wanted you to know, Zuko. It makes me happy that you care at all. Thank you.”

Whatever he ends up doing, he’s doing it to make his mother smile again. That, at least, is a thought that Ozai’s _definitely_ never had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have lots of ups and downs with how I view "The Search", but I will DIE for every single one of Zuko's interactions with Kiyi. Azula's perception of Kiyi "replacing" her is, I think, actually super interesting in a heartbreaking way, and I DEFINITELY plan to explore that more instead of yeeting Azula off into a forest and forgetting about it. (I need to reread Smoke and Shadow bc I barely remember it so I can't remember if Azula and Kiyi interacted at all there...)


	6. How To Keep Occupied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iroh asks for Toph's help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna post something else but then Toph told me she needed a chapter and who am I to say no?

The first thing Toph likes to do, on waking up in the morning, is have a good, hard _stretch_.

It’s not ladylike, and the noises she makes when she’s doing it are even less so, which is one reason she likes doing it, as much as the fact that it just feels good. She’s been sleeping rough ever since she left home, and of course she’s perfectly comfortable wherever she can get dirt between her toes, but her muscles took a while to get used to not spending the night on a soft mattress. But she can sprawl and stretch and grunt as much as she likes, and there are no servants to come wake her up and feed her and dress her up and talk about her like she isn’t there.

There are other benefits to sleeping outside. By moving her feet across the ground, she can feel how warm it is, and get a sense of the angle of the sunlight as she moves her arms, and from that make a good guess at what kind of time it is. It helps that the Fire Nation pretty much runs along the equator, and Caldera City is almost dead on, so the sun rises and sets at the same time all year round. In the Fire Nation, even the sunrise is perfectly scheduled.

She shifts her feet a little more, listens to the stones, gets a good look at her friends. Hakoda and Suki didn’t have a problem with camping out in the courtyard they’ve occupied rather than crashing in any of the guest rooms, even though they just got out of prison. Being under the open sky probably feels pretty good after being locked in a cell, and it’s warm here, anyway. Suki is already up, going through some Kyoshi Warrior kata, and Aang is sitting up, probably watching her. Katara, Sokka and Hakoda are all still completely out, their deep breathing almost identical.

Toph’s a little envious about how well Sokka and Katara get along with their dad. He asked their opinion on Zuko and _listened_ to it. He was genuinely rapt to hear about their adventures over the last few months, really proud of Sokka’s swordsmanship and Katara’s bending and all they’ve done to help Aang. Toph doesn’t need _anybody__’s_ approval to be a badass, of course, but she wishes she didn’t have to _wonder_ if her parents would be proud of her. Katara and Sokka don’t have to hesitate to show their dad something cool they’ve learned how to do because they’re worried it’s not _proper_. Katara’s girlier than Toph, but she’s never had to give a single shit about being _ladylike_.

For all that she’s absolutely terrifying, even _Azula_ got to bend all she wanted, and she’s a whole-ass princess.

“Morning, Toph,” Aang says quietly, probably to avoid disturbing the Snoozles Family. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like a rock,” Toph says, shifting her feet again to get a wider look. It can be hard to see who’s where in the Fire Nation palace, but if she’s _very_ attentive, she can _sort_ of tell where people are on all the wood floors from the way the wood trembles when walked on or sinks and settles from somebody standing on it. There was some kind of commotion last night, but nothing caught fire or exploded, so Toph figured it wasn’t worth interrupting the good atmosphere that had built up while they were all catching up.

She can see much better in the other courtyards, the training yards, the gardens. She can pick out Azula easily by her conflicting heartbeats, though for now, they’re as close as Toph’s ever heard them to being in concert. She’s firebending, but she’s alone wherever she is, so she’s probably just training, and Toph forces herself to unclench. Whatever’s going on with Azula right now, the princess isn’t coming after them.

She spots Zuko in a garden, the vibrations his chair makes on the ground _very_ distinctive as somebody pushes him along. She can’t hear his heartbeat when he’s not in direct contact with the ground, but it seems safe to assume that _he__’s_ still alive. Toph’s pretty sure that’s his mom pushing his chair, her single heartbeat anxious and fluttery, but she generally sounds like that.

And—huh. Uncle’s coming towards them. Toph gets up, bundling up her hair to get it out of the way. Not like she needs it out of her face, but it’s distracting when it’s brushing her shoulders and back. Maybe she should just cut it off. Like it would piss her parents off any more than everything she’s already doing, right?

“Morning, Uncle,” she says once he’s close enough that she doesn’t have to shout. “What’s up?”

“Good morning, Toph, Aang… Commander Suki.” Toph frowns. Uncle sounds about as calm as he ever does, at least while nothing bad’s happening to Zuko, but his second heartbeat is fizzling with something she can’t quite identify—anxiety? Fear? Anger? “I hope you are all well-rested. Are you sure I cannot yet tempt you to the guest bedrooms?”

“Thanks, but we’re okay!” Aang says brightly. “Though I guess we’re gonna need a bigger campsite once the Kyoshi Warriors and water tribesmen start arriving—”

“Wait, you’re bringing them all _here_?” Suki was starting to relax a little as she ran her kata, but now her voice and stance are _thrumming_ with tension. “When are we going to be allowed to leave?”

“In the… current climate, right here is the only place where the Fire Lord can be reasonably assured of your safe release,” Uncle says carefully. “You are, of course, free to leave whenever you wish, but I imagine you would like to see to the safe release of all of your comrades first? And it will give us time to arrange a trustworthy crew to ferry you home.” He’s tense, like he _knows_ how shady this probably sounds to somebody not predisposed to trusting the Fire Nation, but he’s not lying.

“I could always fly you back,” Aang offers. “Appa should be able to carry your whole squad, Suki, but Sifu Iroh’s right—we should make sure they all get here first!”

“Trust me, toots, folks in this palace are more scared of _us_ than we need to be of them,” Toph assures Suki. “Though, talking of the current climate—what was all that commotion about last night, Uncle?”

The little stutter in Uncle’s heartbeat is _not_ promising, even though he keeps his breathing level. “Ah. You have not heard,” he says flatly.

“People have kinda been avoiding us,” Aang admits, sounding genuinely downcast. “What happened?”

Uncle takes a deep breath, in and out, before speaking. “There was another attempt on Zuko’s life last night,” he says with blatantly forced calm. Aang makes a shocked squeaking noise. “Possibly Azula’s instead, or as well, as she was standing next to him. Two of the three assassins were taken alive, and I am on my way to question them. I would like to request your assistance, if you are willing, Toph.”

“_Another_ assassination attempt?” Suki asks warily.

“But—he’s the Fire Lord now,” Aang sputters. “I thought, once he was crowned—”

“Would that things were that simple,” Uncle sighs. “I wish I could say that they will be the last, but I fear not. But such things are my concern, and that of the Royal Guard, not yours, Avatar Aang.”

Aang groaned. “I wish you’d stop telling me things _aren__’t my concern_—I’m the Avatar! I’m supposed to bring balance to the world!”

“To the _world_, yes,” Uncle says gently. “But to bring balance to the _Fire Nation_ is the Fire Lord’s purpose, just as it is the Earth King’s to bring balance to the Earth Kingdom, and the duty of chiefs to bring balance to their tribes. What _is_ your concern, at this time, is to bring all of these leaders together and into peace…” He bowed his head to Suki. “You know what the other nations think of us, and it is a reputation that we have earned. They will not believe us that we wish to talk peace. But they may believe _you_.”

Aang settles, feeling a little more solid, more _grounded_. Toph can’t blame him. She must not be the only one who’s been feeling oddly loose since they actually beat the Fire Lord, which has been such a large, all-consuming goal for so long that she feels kinda unfocused without it. Sure, there’s been other things to do since—get Ozai to prison, help Iroh sort out the throne, figure out what to do about Azula, get Hakoda and Suki released… but they’ve all felt so straightforward in comparison. With the big project of _arrange a peace conference_ set in front of him, Aang feels more settled.

Toph needs things to occupy herself, too. Aang still has a lot of work to do before he’s a master earthbender, but there isn’t so much of a rush on his training anymore and they’ve all kinda put training on hold while recovering from that battle, anyway. She wants to explore more of what she can do with metalbending, maybe try and teach it to Aang, or other earthbenders, but that feels like something that’ll have to wait until a formal peace is in place and it’s safer to travel around the Earth Kingdom. She’s at a loose end right now, and she needs _something_ to distract her.

So. Questioning assassins. Toph helped go through the guards before, after the last assassination attempt, but they didn’t find anybody else actually _involved_, just some guys that had to be quietly let go because they were big mad that Iroh was having the Avatar’s crew as houseguests after they kicked Ozai’s ass. Uncle had apologized for dragging her into Fire Nation political intrigue, but she likes using her earth sense this way. It’s kinda meditative, clearing her mind of everything but learning the other person’s breathing and heartbeat, listening for disruptions to the patterns. “I’ll help,” she agrees, cracking her fingers. “Sounds more interesting than just hanging around here all day, anyway.”

“I could—” Aang begins, but Toph waves him off.

“I know we got a buddy system, but I’m going with Uncle, right?” she says, going and latching onto the old man’s arm, partly to make the point and partly because Uncle’s heart makes a happy little fluttery thing when she does it. People in the Fire Nation are _so_ touch-starved. “It’ll be fine.”

Aang nods. “If you’re sure,” he says. She’s sure. Even if she did want somebody else along, she doesn’t want it to be Aang. All of Uncle’s gentility falls away where protecting Zuko is involved, so whatever _questioning_ means in the Fire Nation, in this context, it might be something Aang will most definitely not like. Toph doesn’t like the thought either, but she can deal with it better than Aang would, and she’s not above tearing Uncle a new asshole if she has to.

Hopefully, though, the fact that he’s asking for her least violent skill means they haven’t gotten to anything _nasty_ yet. She decides to just go ahead and ask once she and Uncle have walked off, letting him lead the way. “So what’s been happening to those assassins between last night and now?” she asks. “What _does_ questioning assassins usually look like in the Fire Nation?”

Uncle sighs. “Generally… no doubt whatever you are fearing, and worse,” he admits. “That is one reason that I am so grateful that you are here, Toph. So far, the assassins have spent… oh, about eleven hours with a rotation of guards questioning them while not permitting them food, water or sleep. Not a hand has been laid on them yet.”

“But you’d… you’d torture them? If you thought you had to? To protect Zuko?” Toph is frustrated by how small her voice comes out, but she doesn’t like this side of Uncle, the one that Ozai brought out when he claimed that he’d killed Zuko, the one that reminds her of the stories she heard when she was little, of the Dragon of the West as some kind of battlefield monster, as inhuman as an ogre or a jiangshi…

Uncle, to his credit, thinks carefully for a while before responding. “I would not wish to,” he says eventually. “I would not enjoy it. I could be a coward and turn their interrogation over to Azula, who would sleep quite peacefully after extracting the information she wishes. _I_ wish to do none of these things, and I am grateful to have your help, Toph. Even if they will not answer questions, with your abilities, you will be able to tell when they have an involuntary reaction to them, will you not?”

“Sure,” Toph says with a nod. “Like, if you have suspects for who’s behind the job, just start listing names. Even if they can keep their faces calm, their hearts’ll jump if they hear an important name. _Do_ you have suspects?”

Uncle explains the assassination attempt as they leave the palace and start heading up the caldera. “It took time to get Zuko to the Agni Kai hall in his chair,” he concludes, “so somebody would have had time to send the assassins to scale the rafters before the duel. But they must have done so in between the challenge and the duel, because they could not have known… hmmm.” The thoughtful murmur is so deep that it resonates through his whole body. “Though I suppose, if one knew that Zuko was holding a war council, it would not be too dangerous a gamble to suppose that it might end in a challenge…”

Toph laughs. “Man, he pisses _everybody_ off, doesn’t he?” she says. “Well, if you wanna question the council too, I’m in. I’m _down_ to freak out some stuffy old warmongers.”

Iroh coughs, but Toph can hear the wobble in his breathing that means he’s trying not to laugh too. “I do not wish to demand your skills too heavily,” he says.

Toph shrugs. “Honestly, Uncle? I’m _really_ bored right now,” she admits. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that we’re not having to fight for our lives all the time, but we’re just kinda waiting on things to happen, and it’s _dull_.” For some reason, the further it sinks in that they won and the war is over, the harder it’s hitting Toph how many times she nearly _died_. The less she has to do, the harder it is not to think about the heat she’d felt outside of the airship, the biggest fire she’d ever felt in her _life_, the horrible shaking and the sounds of their airship hitting the rest of the fleet, having to jump with her heart in her throat and the mantra _it__’s okay Sokka and Katara will catch me I trust them they’ll catch me they WILL_ repeating over and over in her head, and that horrible, black moment where she couldn’t feel anything in the world but Sokka’s hand struggling to grip hers, hearing the tears in his voice as he told her _I don__’t think boomerang’s coming back—_

“I am grateful, then,” Iroh says, patting Toph’s hand gently. She realizes that she’s gripping his arm too hard and lets go. They’re well outside of the palace now, walking up a nice, solid stone path, and when Toph pays attention, she can see that that the building they’re walking up to is solid stone, too. She focuses on _that_, on finding the shape of the stone, the winding corridors, counting the people inside. “Hmmm… your technique depends on paying attention to the breath and the heartbeat, yes? I wonder if it could be taught…”

“I’ve been trying to teach it to Aang, but he’s kinda had other priorities,” Toph says with a shrug. “He’s got the breath part down, at least, since, y’know, airbending. You told him that firebending comes from the breath too, right? Could you use it to key into another person’s breathing?”

“With care and attention, possibly,” Iroh muses. “If you are willing to teach, I would be honoured to learn. It would be preferable to returning to the old techniques after you have returned home.” Toph tenses involuntarily, and of course it’s too much to hope that Iroh didn’t notice. This is the _other_ thing she’s been trying not to think about. “Toph… you just helped save the entire Earth Kingdom, if not the world. Are you so sure they will take no pride at all in that?”

Toph bends a small chunk of stone out of the ground just so she can kick it along. Tea and chats with Uncle over the last couple months have helped her work through a _lot _of junk she feels about her parents, but she can’t shake the feeling that the first time she goes home is only going to spark a lot of arguments that she doesn’t want to have. “Noble girls in the Fire Nation get to firebend, don’t they?” she asks. “Or is Azula just special?”

“Azula is… very unique,” Iroh says in that careful tone reserved for his niece. “Daughters of the nobility are not expected or required to serve in the military as boys are, but if they can firebend? We are not a people who do things by halves. They are expected to _excel_.”

“Not surprised,” Toph snorts. “Earthbending’s seen as a style of fighting in most of the Earth Kingdom, and fighting isn’t _ladylike_.”

“Ah,” Uncle says, and sighs heavily. “I am sorry that your family cannot appreciate what a gifted daughter they have, Toph.”

Toph shrugs again. It’s a good catchall response. “Thanks, Uncle, but it’s fine. Really. I don’t need their approval. It’s just that I know going home’ll mean arguing with them about it, and I’d rather be here helping you hunt assassins and freak out the court!”

“Well, I, at least, am grateful for your skill,” Iroh says, his weight shifting as he bows his head to Toph, “and if it is not too forward to say, _I_ am proud of all that you have achieved. When I think of all the things you have done at your age… I must admit, I am excited to see what you take it into your head to do next!”

Toph’s kneejerk reaction is that she doesn’t need anybody’s pity, but she knows when people are lying, and she has absolute confidence in her abilities, and in general she’s getting better at this trusting people thing. Uncle’s not like her parents, who give polite praise when it’s socially appropriate but never _mean _it. “Thanks, Uncle,” she says, punching him affectionately on the arm. There are jumps in a couple of heartbeats just ahead, meaning that the guards on the prison gate saw that. Toph’s getting familiar with the sound of a Fire Nation person being _utterly scandalized_ by what they just saw, and it makes her grin every time.

She focuses on that, focuses on mapping the royal prisons in her mind. Guards are all coated in sheens of metal armour, while prisoners are tethered by chains—as good as being held by threads, from Toph’s perspective. Mostly the prisoners are alone in their cells, but she can find two cells each containing one prisoner and two guards. That’s the direction Uncle leads her in, so yep, those must be the assassins. She focuses in on them—she’s too far away to hear breathing, but she can get heartbeats easily with them chained to rock walls. Only one heartbeat each, so they’re not firebenders. That makes things a little simpler, but it’s also a shame, since those fire heartbeats can be _really _reactive. Those heartbeats are slow right now in a way that sounds like exhaustion, but there are no jumps of pain, no stuttering in their pulse as their blood flow is disrupted by a wound. The guards aren’t standing close enough to have hands on them, either. Just as Uncle promised, right now they’re only asking questions.

Two of three assassins, Uncle said. Toph tries not to wonder what happened to the third. Azula was in the room. Then again, so was Uncle, and somebody tried to kill Zuko _again_.

“General Iroh, sir,” one of the guards outside the cells says, armour clinking and feet scuffing on stone as the rest stand to attention. “And, ah… Lady Bei Fong, I see.”

“Have the prisoners said anything of use?” Uncle asks, pausing outside the door of the first cell.

“Haven’t said anything at all, sir. Complete silence.”

The door opens, letting them in. The guards in here stand to attention too, and—_there__’s _a stutter in the prisoner’s heartbeat. They tamp it down a moment later, but it sounds like either surprise at the sight of Toph, or fear at the sight of Uncle. Maybe a bit of both. Toph casually wanders over to lean against the wall next to the prisoner, where she can hear them most clearly.

Breathing—slow, deep, _tightly_ controlled. Heart beating a little faster now. The gross smell of old sweat fills the room, but—there, new salt on their brow, their hands, their neck. No smell of blood. Slight smell of piss. Toph edges a little further away from the prisoner.

“Last night, you attempted to assassinate Fire Lord Zuko,” Uncle says. All the warmth has drained from his voice again, now sharp and cold as a knife. “Do you deny it?”

No response. No change in pulse or breathing. They were prepared for this.

“You were also here to assassinate Princess Azula,” Uncle continues. “Is that not so?”

There’s a stutter of the heart, the slightest movement against stone from a tilt of the head. Not surprise—confusion. Toph shakes her head.

“Hmm, I see,” Uncle says. “The Fire Lord alone, then. Interesting.”

_There__’s_ a jump in surprise. The assassin thought they’d given nothing away. Toph grins. She knows what to listen for, now.

“A great many people would have had time to dispatch you to the Agni Kai Chamber after General Shu issued his challenge,” Uncle muses. No change in the assassin. Toph shakes her head. “But then, anybody might predict that this war meeting would end in fighting. And with the palace so understaffed, you might have been free to go and lie in wait for hours before…”

Tension in the frame, a slight speeding of the heartbeat, breath turning a little _too_ regular. Controlled. They’re trying not to give anything away. Toph nods.

“…and no doubt General Shu had an inkling of what the Fire Lord intended to propose, and himself intended to make the challenge even before the meeting began…”

The heart settles, the body relaxes. _They__’re okay with us pinning this on Shu_, Toph realizes. _And that means we__’re on the wrong track._

In the Earth Kingdom, an assassin is a particularly pricey sort of sellsword. Paid well for death, and even better for silence, but few are willing to die for their employer. Some stake professional reputations on never naming their clients, no matter what, but others will haggle if captured, and at the end of the day, you get what you pay for.

She’d referred to finding the assassins’ employers after the last attempt, when somebody had tried to kill Zuko in his infirmary bed. Uncle had given her an odd look, and then explained that, while such mercenaries _do_ exist in the Fire Nation, you couldn’t pay one enough to strike at the Royal Family. To shoot that high, to take on a task that dangerous, that disruptive to the whole nation, takes more than coin. It takes loyalty. Assassins in the Fire Nation are more than soldiers who turned their skills at killing people to the private sector—often they’ve been raised in the service of a single noble house, intended to fight for it from birth until death, and indeed most likely to die in service to that house.

So whoever these guys are, they won’t haggle, and they won’t give up their lord to save their own skins. Toph can kinda respect that. It would make getting anything out of these guys a lot harder for most people, but she’s not most people.

She shakes her head, trusting Uncle to catch the movement, to be paying attention to her. “…but a man as honourable as General Shu, disrupting a formal Agni Kai with assassins? I think not,” he continues smoothly. “Of course, there are more… pragmatic… men on the council. General Bujing, for one—”

The assassin’s heart _races_, and Toph grins again. _Got __‘im._

“…Well, it is fair to say that I am disappointed in him, but not surprised,” Uncle sighs. “Thank you, young man. You have been _most_ helpful.”

Toph holds her breath as she follows Uncle out of the room, waiting until she’s out of sight of the silently panicking assassin before bursting out laughing. “_Wow_, Uncle,” she giggles, clutching her stomach. “I mean, ‘you have been most helpful’? I thought you said we _weren__’t_ gonna torture him!” Yep, there it is, as soon as she addresses him as _Uncle_—the stutter of half a dozen Fire Nation-y hearts silently going _what the fuck?_

“Lady Bei Fong, you wound me,” Uncle gasps. “I seek only to be a gracious host to our honoured guests!”

“Sure,” Toph snickers. “So, what now?”

“I should like to check our suspicions with the second assassin before bringing a report to the Fire Lord,” Uncle says, stepping up to the other cell door. It’s weird, after all this time going _we must defeat the Fire Lord_, to remember that _Zuko_ is the Fire Lord now, that the title no longer means an enemy. “And then… tonight, the Agni Kai against General Shu must reconvene, and our suspect will be present. Would you have any interest in attending? I know I am interested in what you might make of him…”

Toph’s grin widens until she hears the guards’ hearts stutter in fright. She can’t _wait_ to make the war council’s hearts do _that_. It’ll be nice to be in the loop about what’s going on in the Fire Nation, too. “Well, since you invited me so _graciously__…_”

Using her earth-sense to all but read people’s minds is fun, but she won’t say no to the chance to bend some rocks at rebellious generals, either. It’s nice to keep busy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A jiangshi is a type of Chinese vampire, also known as a "hopping vampire" or "hopping zombie", which probably sounds a lot funnier than it would actually be to have a reanimated corpse hopping after you
> 
> It's worth remembering that sleep deprivation and starvation are both acknowledged by the UN as forms of torture. Iroh and Toph just don't see it as such compared to the more conventional Fire Nation methods of torture that Suki alluded to before. 
> 
> Toph is super tough so I think it's easy to forget that, like Aang, she's only twelve. I need somebody to adopt this badass child and respect her badassery while also giving her affection and support, and I feel like that person is Iroh.


	7. How To Un-Break Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko owes Mai some explanations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Self-harm tag added for this chapter. Nothing graphically depicted, but regular references to it and the feelings involved. 
> 
> A really important aspect of Japanese culture and manners is honne-tatemae--that is, "inner/true feelings" vs "public face". There are a LOT of expectations and pressures around constructing tatemae, and matching those expectations is of paramount importance, to the point of outright lying to that end being acceptable or expected. As an autistic Scot I seriously struggled with interacting people through tatemae, but it's not being dishonest or manipulative in Japanese culture--it's just manners. And like anything else, it can be taken to damaging extremes...

As a kid, Mai spent a lot of time alone. Her parents didn’t want to raise a daughter. If they’d been able to lock her in a chest until she was old enough to marry off, they would have. Leaving her alone in her room was the next best thing. Alone without much in the way of toys, because they didn’t want to waste time or money on childish things, but with piles of scents and makeup and jewelery to decorate her with on the rare occasion that they did have to wheel her out for a formal event. Jewelery with _sharp_ edges.

The first time she’d cut herself, stained expensive silks with blood, marked her own flawless porcelain skin, _forced_ her parents to look at her, if only with eyes full of fury and scolding? It had felt good. All they cared about was how she looked, and she could _control_ that. She didn’t just cut herself—she slashed fine dresses, tore hanging scrolls, practiced her calligraphy by scratching her name into every piece of furniture in her room…

Her parents all but emptied her room to stop her destroying things. When she had nothing but a toy ball, because they were so sure she couldn’t break anything with a ball, she’d tear up the skin of her legs with her fingernails and throw the ball at the wall as hard as she could. For hours, sometimes, she had nothing but throwing the ball at the wall, over and over and over.

Hitting the same marks again and again was satisfying. So satisfying that she stopped tearing up her skin, stopped breaking the things her parents slowly allowed the servants to bring back to her room. They had to be _sturdy_ things, because anything she could heft in one hand, she would throw. Calligraphy brushes. Makeup pots. Jewelery. Hairpins were her favourite, once she realized that if she threw them _just_ right, they’d _stick_, with a _thunk_ noise that was even more satisfying than hitting the mark. And once her parents started returning things to her room, she grasped that, once they _thought_ she was quiet, and calm, and obedient, she’d have more freedom. Being able to let her frustrations out with a flick of her wrist and a satisfying _thunk_ made her feel better about playing the part of the pretty porcelain doll for her parents, and that meant they finally sent her to the Royal Academy For Girls.

Mai hadn’t been around other children until then, and the other girls had all been in class together since they were five. She was seven, and she didn’t know how to talk to them, she didn’t know their games or songs, she didn’t know how to do anything but be pretty and silent and out of the way. She decided that she was fine being alone—being in class, learning new things, _doing_ new things, was enough.

According to Ty Lee, however, being alone was terribly sad, and being her friend would be much more fun. Once Ty Lee decided that she was going to be your friend, that was that. She was more than bright and bouncy and outgoing enough to make up for how sullen and silent and withdrawn Mai was, and didn’t mind that Mai didn’t match her energy. Being friends with her was sometimes chaotic and overwhelming, but it was never _boring_.

Being friends with Ty Lee also meant being friends with Azula. At least, Azula decided that that was what it meant, and even that early in life, the princess was used to getting what she wanted. Being friends with Azula wasn’t like being friends with Ty Lee, but it wasn’t too scary if Mai played a part for her, the same way she played a part for her parents. Laughed at the right times, lost at games without _obviously_ giving up, only played the games that Azula wanted to play…

(It was more fun playing with Zuko. And there _was_ a time when Azula and Zuko played together, when Azula would forget herself sometimes and have _fun_. Zuko was more honest, honest in a way that even then Mai knew was going to get him eaten alive at court, the way it allowed Azula to play him like a cheap flute, but at least he wasn’t just playing a part like everybody else.)

Azula’s eyes lit up the first time she saw Mai throw something and nail a spider-fly from ten feet away. She was the one who showed Mai actual purpose-made throwing knives from the royal armoury, had ones made for her with pretty decorated handles so she could hide them in her hair, who helped Mai sew hidden bandoliers into the sleeves of her clothes and giggled when her mother said how sweet they looked, working on their sewing together like little ladies. It _had_ felt good, having somebody see what she did best and think it was _cool. _To feel like somebody _understood_ how satisfying it was to hear that _thunk_ of her hitting a target.

(Her walls didn’t scream when she hit them.)

“Mai?”

Mai checks her expression before looking up, making sure it’s smooth and calm. It’s still odd to hear Lady Ursa’s voice again, after so much gossip that the woman was dead and gone, odder still to look up and see her not in royal robes but barefoot peasant outfits, short sleeves and skirts that only go to her knees, baring an amount of arm and leg that’s scandalous off of the beach.

(Mai carefully does not stare at scars on those bared limbs, the pink shapes of old burns or the white trails of cuts and scratches that are so like the calligraphy of frustration on Mai’s own legs, the scars her mother moaned would disgust her future husband, whatever faceless man has more right to Mai’s own skin than she does. Lady Ursa shows hers like they don’t matter. Then again, while nobody will say it, Mai suspects that Lady Ursa’s skin was still unbroken before Ozai got his hands on it, just like Zuko.)

“Lady Ursa,” she says, bowing her head. “Can I help you?” The woman is carrying a large tray of food. Mai’s mother would have an aneurysm if she saw a lady, a _princess_, coarsening her hands with the work of servants. If there are assassins after Zuko’s head, though, Mai can’t blame Ursa for not wanting to let others get their hands on his food.

“It’s alright, dear, I can handle this,” Ursa assures her. “I’m just taking lunch to Zuko and Iroh. Why not walk with me?”

Mai falls into step without thinking about it. She hasn’t gotten the chance to talk to Zuko yet. She was with Azula all day yesterday, part of her net to stop assassins from finishing what Ozai started. Azula’s used to getting what she wants, and used to be right, and the worst thing is how often she _is_. By the time the surviving assassins were locked away, it was late and she was so, so tired…

Ty Lee stayed in a guest room because she no longer has a home here in the capital. Mai does, but she just got _out_ of prison, and going back to that house would feel too much like being locked up again. She slept in the room next to Ty Lee’s, eventually, tossing and turning under too-smooth silk sheets and too many pillows. Azula hasn’t sent for her today, and she slept far too long. She hasn’t had breakfast, but she isn’t hungry. She’s just been wandering the gardens, looking for something, _anything_ other than just sitting and waiting for somebody to come take her out of her box.

Zuko _better_ not be too busy for her.

He’s sitting in the anteroom of the Fire Lord’s chambers with his uncle, handling the royal seal carefully with heavily bandaged hands while Iroh drips wax for him, and presumably wrote the letters he’s putting the seal on in the first place. Iroh is the first to look up with a friendly smile. “Ahhh, Lady Ursa… and Lady Mai, too! You are a welcome respite from the dullness of military regulations!”

Zuko looks up when he hears Mai’s name. She’s struck by the discovery that he must have been wearing a wig yesterday, in order to have something to put the crown in, because now all that’s on his head is a thin fuzz broken up in jagged places by newer, still-healing scars. The wig is sitting on a stand on a table by his elbow, the crown lying flat in front of it, looking for all the world like a large and rather plain hairpin.

“Mai,” he says, and smiles, because he’s a completely unfurled scroll. She wishes he wasn’t, because it just makes things more complicated. If he just didn’t care about her, it would be simpler, and she could just be angry with him. But he cares, and he still left her without a word of explanation.

“Iroh, let’s step out and give them a chance to talk,” Ursa says, walking over to the table and giving her son and brother-in-law a pointed look until they clear away enough paperwork for her to set the tray of food down. “Mai, dear, please make sure he eats, he needs his strength.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Zuko mutters, a little red-faced. Ursa just gives him a sunny smile, winks at Mai, and then helps Iroh clear off the rest of the paperwork and clear out. Zuko sighs when the door shuts behind them, slumping a little in his chair. “Please, sit down,” he asks Mai, gesturing awkwardly to Iroh’s vacated chair. “How are you, you know… doing? Are you okay?”

Mai raises an eyebrow, going to sit. “I’m not the one who nearly got assassinated yesterday,” she points out. She’s got a few new marks from the Boiling Rock, from a couple fights that went hard, from long, dull hours in her cell with nothing to throw at the walls. But she doesn’t have a fraction of the pain written all over Zuko.

(All the stories and plays had a handsome prince in them somewhere. When she was a kid, she’d thought of Zuko as one. That was what everybody said—that the little prince and princess were going to grow up to be stunning. How could they not, looking at their parents, both the perfect image of traditional beauty? Long, perfectly straight black hair, pure gold eyes, high cheekbones, flawless white skin. _What a shame_, everybody said when word got out that Zuko’s face was scarred, _what a waste_. Nobody said _what a shame _as Azula twisted and rotted, because it was only on the inside, where nobody could see. As if it mattered, so long as she was outwardly perfect.)

Zuko winces. “Not the first time, probably won’t be the last,” he says, shaking his head. “I’ve been out of prison a couple weeks now… I think… but you just got out yesterday…” He sighs. “And then Azula immediately drafted you into fighting assassins. I’m sorry, Mai—”

“Stop,” Mai says, holding up a hand. “I don’t want _you_ to apologize for Azula being… Azula. She asked for my help, and I agreed, not because I’m afraid of her.” Not that she isn’t still afraid of Azula, or at least, she still knows that Azula might hurt her if the princess doesn’t get what she wants, might even kill her if she got angry enough. Mai would rather be killed than go back to prison to slowly tear herself apart. Even burning is quicker. “I agreed because I didn’t want to risk you getting killed before you explain yourself, and this time, you have to look me in the fucking eyes when you do it. If you’re going to apologize, apologize for how _you_ broke my fucking heart.”

Zuko rocks back in his chair, as if she’d thrown something at him. She could have, if she still had that letter, but all she has up her sleeves are knives.

(When a knife lands in a human skull, it doesn’t go _thunk_. She knows that now.)

“Mai… I’m sorry,” Zuko sighs. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Didn’t mean to what?” Mai demands. “Throw me away? Leave? Get _caught_? Why did you do it at _all_, Zuko? You were _home_! You were the Crown Prince again, your father welcomed you back and even wanted you in his war meetings, you could have everything you wanted—why would you throw that all away?!”

She _needs_ to know why. What was worth throwing away everything he’d worked for for three years? What was worth throwing away _her_, without even telling her why?

(She remembers, all too vividly, her own words—_I only asked if you were cold, I didn__’t ask for your life story_. They hadn’t been together long, and she just wanted him to be happy that he was going home, not frustrated and angry for reasons she didn’t understand. But the longer they were together, the more he encouraged _her_ to open up, to tell him what was on her mind, and never told her that what she thought or felt was unladylike, that she should be silent and expressionless. He never pushed away _her_ frustration, _her_ anger. Did she make him think that she didn’t care about his? Was that why he wouldn’t tell her anything?)

Zuko’s quiet for a long time, staring down at his hands, his brow pinched in thought. “I… don’t know how it started, exactly,” he says eventually. “I think it was… a lot of things. Things that were changing me, and I didn’t know they were at the time. While I was exiled… especially after Uncle and I were declared traitors, and had to go on the run. Hiding out in the Earth Kingdom, pretending to be just a couple of refugees… I met people who thought the Fire Nation wasn’t any more than a pack of murderers and monsters. And at the time, I thought they were wrong. I thought they just didn’t know us, didn’t understand us, that they had the wrong idea because they’d only seen battlefields…” He grimaces. “But after that war meeting, I saw they were right. And I couldn’t be a part of that, Mai. I _had_ to leave, to try and do _something__…_”

“Couldn’t be a part of _what_?” Mai demands. “Zuko, what _happened_ in that war meeting?”

Zuko looks startled. “You don’t know?” he says in surprise. “Azula didn’t tell you?”

“I hardly saw Azula after you left,” Mai says coolly. “Whatever she was doing on the eclipse, she wanted the Dai Li for it, not me or Ty Lee. Same for whatever she was working on _after_ the eclipse.”

Why couldn’t she just have been happy that Azula left her out of whatever cruel scheme she was planning? Why did she have to feel thrown away, like a tool that had been dropped in a box when Azula no longer needed it, like it was no different from her parents shutting her away like a doll being taken down from a display? Maybe because a tool and a doll are both _things_. Only Ty Lee and Zuko saw a person with feelings, and Ty Lee is so uncomfortable with frustration, or anger, or sadness.

(That night on Ember Island, when it all came pouring out at the bonfire, is the only time she’s ever seen Ty Lee cry. The rest of the time she’s all sunny smiles and cartwheels and _cheer up_s, even in prison. Maybe that’s just a mask too, a sunny, cheerful, _noisy_ one, like a festival mask to Mai’s noh. She’s so tired of masks.)

Zuko exhales shakily. “In the war meeting… after taking Ba Sing Se, there was still rebellion across the Earth Kingdom to deal with,” he says, eyes going distant. “My father actually asked my opinion on the Earth Kingdom, what I thought about it. He _invited_ me to speak up, and he _listened_, but… I told him that the people of the Earth Kingdom are proud and strong, and can endure anything so long as they have hope. What I _meant_ was that we wouldn’t be able to _crush_ them out of rebellion… but what he _heard_ was that we had to crush their hope, and then Azula…” He grimaces. “She said we should just burn it all down.”

Which sounds _exactly_ like Azula. That’s one of her favourite problem-solving techniques. She had fun manipulating the Dai Li and the Earth King, but she also oh-so-casually mentioned that if things went wrong, she’d just burn the palace down and the Earth King with it.

“And Father… Ozai… he _really_ liked that plan,” Zuko says flatly. “With Sozin’s Comet coming… he knew it would be the perfect time to raze the Earth Kingdom to ashes. All of it.”

Mai’s breath catches. That’s… _that__’s_…

The Earth Kingdom was big, and dusty, and riding across the sheer expanse of it was _so boring_, and it was full of boring towns and villages full of stubborn, boring people. New Ozai had just been a lump of of dusty brown with a crazy king and she’d _hated_ it. She’d wanted to leave as soon as possible, even with Azula. _Leave_, not burn it all to the ground. She doesn’t care if it’s boring if it’s boring far away from her. Just because she hates it doesn’t mean it has to stop existing. Out of sight, out of mind is good enough for her.

But people like Ozai and Azula don’t think like that. The world revolves around them, and things they don’t like have to go. And Sozin’s Comet gave Ozai the power to actually _make that happen_.

“Zuko,” she says, her throat dry, “why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

Zuko grimaces. “The eclipse was the next day,” he begins. “There wasn’t time—”

“_Bullshit _there wasn’t,” Mai snaps. “You had a whole day—you had time to write that fucking letter and sneak in and out of my house to deliver it! So why didn’t you so much as write down—did you think I wouldn’t believe you?” A nasty thought strikes her, and she lets it out, because that’s what he said he wanted. “Did you think I wouldn’t _care_? For fuck’s sakes, Zuko, just because I grew up friends with Azula doesn’t mean I’m okay with _genocide_!”

Zuko’s eyes widen. “No! No, Mai, I never thought—that’s just what I was afraid of,” he groans, rubbing his face with his hands. “You know Azula. You know what my father is _like_… I never thought you wouldn’t believe me. And I never thought you wouldn’t _care_. But I…” He gives a hoarse, bitter laugh. “I knew that what I was doing was risky, and that Ozai might just kill me this time for it,” he mumbles into his hands, “and I didn’t want you dead along with me.” He drags his hands down, shaking his head. “I fucked up. I didn’t help the Avatar. I couldn’t help _myself_. And I didn’t keep you safe either, did I?”

Mai stares at him for a moment. Then she leans back in her chair, staring at the ceiling with a loud, frustrated groan. “Just so you know,” she growls, jabbing a finger at him, “this is my _least_ favourite part of _every_ hero-tale.”

Zuko blinks at her. “Uh…?”

“You know,” Mai scoffs, “the part where the handsome prince or the great hero or whatever decides not to tell his lady-love something important, _for her own protection._ Except it never protects her, does it? If it doesn’t get her killed, or possessed, or cursed…” She narrows her eyes. “It gets _him_ killed, pulling some ridiculous act of solo heroics, when the whole audience can see that he would’ve lived if he hadn’t gone off alone.” She slides a knife out of her sleeve, twining her fingers around the handle. “Sometimes _she__’s_ even the one who kills him, not knowing who the dragon or the masked thief really is because he never _told her_…”

“Okay, okay, I get the point,” Zuko mutters, leaning back in his chair. “Would it help if I said I wasn’t planning to escape alone? I was going to break Uncle out…”

Mai taps the blade against the palm of her hand, letting the familiar feeling of sharp steel take the edge off the frustration. Despite the look on Zuko’s face, _he_ isn’t the one she wants to throw knives at. “Your Uncle _did_ escape on the day of the eclipse,” she points out, trying to keep her tone level.

“Yeah… he was already gone by the time I got there,” Zuko sighs. “I didn’t exactly tell him that I was leaving that day, to be fair…”

“Don’t,” Mai says sharply. “_Don__’t_ be fair. He left you behind, Zuko! And it doesn’t matter that you didn’t tell him—I _know_ you were sneaking off to see him!” She grips the handles of her knife even tighter, has to _fight_ not to let the blade break the skin of her hand, hands are too fragile and when struck by a knife people _scream__—_ “You said a lot of things contributed to you leaving. Your Uncle was one of them, wasn’t he? If he was messing with your head, and then he _left_ you—”

“He didn’t—” Zuko grimaces. “Okay… my head was a mess, but it wasn’t…” He looks down. “I thought when I came home, my father would love me again. And you know what? I think he really thought that was what he was offering. Ozai, I mean. I think he really thought that just… not hurting me, so long as I obeyed, so long as I did and said what he wanted, was love. I used to think that, too. And then I spent three years with Uncle Iroh.” He smiles a little, a smile so soft that Ozai would have seared it off his face for weakness. “When I came back, I realized that my father was never going to care about me the way Uncle does. That if he was going to take his love away as soon as I said or did something he didn’t like, it wasn’t love. That you can’t…” He gestures helplessly at himself, at the haiku of hate written into his skin in Ozai’s hand. “You can’t do something like this to somebody you love. Ozai could. Uncle Iroh never would, even after I betrayed him, even after I got him _arrested_…”

(Mai always knew that her parents didn’t love her, didn’t want a daughter, wanted the son they have now. There were always so many conditions, but the prize offered was never love, it was _tolerance_. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be loved the way Zuko says his uncle loves him, to be loved without conditions. Then again, what did Zuko ever ask of her, but to express herself?)

“I didn’t betray Uncle or hunt for the Avatar for all those years for the Fire Nation,” Zuko says bitterly. “I did it for my father. Because I wanted him to take me back, and love me. But as soon as I understood that that wasn’t possible, I had to look at everything that I did for him, and… I hated it, Mai. I _hated _it!” He runs his hands over the thin layer of his hair, scowling. “It wasn’t worth it. _None of it was worth it._”

“None of it?” Mai asks flatly. This is bigger than her, she _knows_ it is, and it makes her feel so small and petty and _nothing_—

Zuko blinks. “Well… there was one good thing,” he said, smiling tiredly at her. “But I couldn’t… it wasn’t about what I wanted anymore, Mai. It was about trying to do the right thing.” He waves his bandage-wrapped hands with a grimace. “_Trying_. I’m no great hero, and I’m really not a handsome prince.”

“Yeah, well, I’m no lady-love pining away by the window either,” Mai said, slipping her knife back into her sleeve and standing up. She walks around to crouch next to Zuko’s chair, putting her hand over one of Zuko’s, holding it as carefully as she can. “So going forward, you _have_ to talk to me like this, okay, Zuko? No leaving me out of things for my own good. _Talk_ to me.” She lets herself smile. “I like it when you express yourself too, you know.”

Zuko looks surprised, then grins. “Does that mean you don’t hate me?” he quips.

“It means I actually kinda like you,” Mai says, leaning forward to kiss him.

There are scars here, too—the slash of a knife, or Zuko biting his own lips? Mai presses forwards, wanting to erase that pain, replace it with _her_.

_(I was the perfect prince,_ he said, _but I wasn__’t me. _Mai doesn’t really know who Zuko is when he’s not the perfect prince, not trying to be Ozai’s weapon the way Azula is. She wants to know who sees her as a person, not a doll or a tool or a scar. There are a lot of things she wants to talk to him about, because she knows he’ll listen, but first she wants to listen to _him_.)

“But don’t _ever_ break up with me again,” she says when they break away. “_Ever_. Got it?”

“Got it,” Zuko says, and he smiles. “Thank you, Mai.”

“For not kicking your ass?” Mai deadpans.

Zuko chuckles. “For letting me explain,” he says. “For trying to help me. For stopping those assassins yesterday…”

Mai stands up abruptly. “Your food’s going cold,” she says, looking back at the tray on the table. There’s one set of plain rice and soup, things that will be easy to eat and easy to digest, and a set of more flavourful plates. Presumably for Iroh, but Mai hasn’t eaten today and they did leave it here with her—

“Mai,” Zuko says. He can’t grip her arm, but he can put his hand there, get her attention with a touch. “You never answered me. Are you okay?”

(_Okay_ is something that she performs, not something that she is. It’s what’s expected and required. The proper answer to such a question is _I__’m doing well_. But Mai isn’t doing well and this is Zuko.)

“When’s the first time you killed somebody, Zuko?” she says hollowly.

Zuko grimaces. “Two years ago,” he says quietly. “A skirmish with Earth Kingdom soldiers while trying to get to the Northern Air Temple. None of the descriptions of great battles that we studied in history class mentioned the _smell_…” He shakes his head. “It was enough to make me want to avoid lethal force whenever possible.”

“For me,” Mai says quietly, “it was yesterday.”

(Her walls didn’t scream when she hit the target, but people do when a knife goes through their hand. She tried to block it out, to just be satisfied with hitting the target she aimed for, to just pin them down. She didn’t kill anybody, and neither did Ty Lee, but they left people unable to escape as Azula burned them alive. People scream when they’re on fire, too, and they scream for far longer than Mai thought a person could still be alive with their whole body aflame, but the man she hit yesterday only screamed for a moment, as long as it took to reach the ground—)

Zuko hisses through his teeth. “Mai… I’m sorry,” he says, trying to reach his arm around her. He can’t pull her in, not physically, but she all but falls forwards anyway, hugging him as tightly as she dares, his thin arms winding around her with much less strength than they used to have, but it’s enough. It’s _so much_. “I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have had to, you don’t have to—”

“I do, Zuko,” she says into his shoulder. This country of blood and fire and masks isn’t ready for somebody like Zuko, and it will kill him if it can, and she _will not let that happen_. “I didn’t agree to help just because Azula told me to. I’m here because I _want_ to protect you, got it? That’s what _I_ want to do. I failed to get you back once, and now you’re here, I’m not letting _anybody_ take you again. Including Azula.” She takes a deep breath, forces herself to let go. “She’s planning something, you know,” she says, looking Zuko in the eye. “Like in Ba Sing Se.”

Zuko sighs. “Yeah… I figured it was too much to hope that she just wanted you and Ty Lee back because she missed you,” he mutters. He leans his forehead against Mai’s. “I missed you,” he says quietly.

“I missed you too,” Mai says. He’s no great hero, and he’s not a handsome prince the way you’d see in any painting, but he’s something so much rarer. He’s trying, as hard as he can, just to be a good man. “And I don’t usually miss.”

Zuko smiles wanly. “Mai… is there anything I can do?” he asks softly.

“Just this,” Mai says, closing her eyes for a moment, just feeling his skin against hers. She doesn’t know if her mother ever held her the way she carries Tom-Tom. Her earliest memory of being hugged is the first time she met Ty Lee, and it was so much then, and being held by Zuko is so much more, and she didn’t realize how starving she was until she got a taste again. “I don’t like killing assassins. But I don’t have to like it to do it. And I _want_ to keep you safe. So you’d better make it worth my while.”

“Doing my best, for what _that__’s_ worth,” Zuko sighs. “C’mon. We should eat. Uncle would say that things will seem brighter from the top of a full stomach, or something.”

“Ugh, that sounds _exactly_ like something he would say,” Mai groans, rolling her eyes as she lets go, gets up, brings the food in his reach. “And while I’ve got you here, there’s one more explanation you owe me.”

“What?” Zuko asks, picking up the bowl of soup.

“What the _fuck _even is going on between you and Azula?”

Zuko chuckles, rolling his eyes. “Ah, now you’re asking the hard ones,” he says dryly. “Well, on the day of the comet…”

Zuko eats his lunch, and Mai eats Iroh’s, and she listens, and does her best to understand. She knows that a lot of what’s wrong with Azula is Ozai’s fault, but that doesn’t mean that Azula is like Zuko. He’s trying to be good, and she isn’t _trying_ to be _anything_, least of all good. She just _is_, and what she is is _dangerous_, and if maybe there’s still a girl in there that Zuko can reach then Mai won’t stop him, but she won’t let Azula hurt _him_, either.

She feels the weight of knives in her sleeves, knives that Azula gave her, in clothes chosen for her by her mother, but both of these things are _hers_ now, all of Mai is hers to do with as she wishes, and what she wishes is to protect the one person who would never take that away from her.

So she hones her knives, prepares herself to kill if she has to, and steels her stomach to carve her name into the skin of anybody who would hurt Zuko.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mai refers to a noh mask--noh theatre is a type of Japanese theatre that uses stylized masks and very slow, controlled movements. I don't think all of them are SUPPOSED to be as creepy as they are, but, uh... well, a lot of 'em do look pretty creepy XD The character "No-Face" in Spirited Away has a Noh mask for a face--his name is a pun, "No-Face/Noh-Face". 
> 
> I do get that a lot of people don't like Maiko because they feel that it was underdeveloped in the show, I get that, that's valid, but I had a lot of feelings about what we did see and what I think they suggested about what was happening with them under the surface. Especially Zuko telling Mai "you're so beautiful when you hate the world". Is it cheesy and emo as fuck? You bet your ass it is! But in a society with a lot of pressure to hide negative or ugly or "inappropriate" emotions, especially for women, I think there's something very powerful about somebody not only encouraging you to express those feelings, but loving you for them. And of course, that's a key part of emo and goth subcultures in the first place. And that's what I love about Maiko.
> 
> Parts of this also inspired by [this](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1210) A Softer World strip.


	8. How To Heal A Wound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the Northern Water Tribe, fighting and healing are two divided strands of waterbending. Katara doesn't want to be divided.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This jumps forwards in time somewhat compared to the others, but it's the next scene I had completed and one I've really wanted to get out there for a while. The Southern Raiders is not just one of the best episodes of ATLA, it's one of the best episodes of _anything_, ever, and it's just a shame we didn't get more time on the emotional aftermath. But I get all the time I want inside of Katara's head!

When she was a little girl, Katara would watch the sea rage during a storm, feeling a strange pull in her to such wild, frenetic water. When she found out that she was a waterbender, she often dreamed of being able to control water like that, to make huge waves and bend the whole sea to her will with the power of a storm.

When they traveled to the North Pole, she saw that power in their waterbenders, with the power to raise and lower huge gates of ice, to control waves, to _fight back_ against the power of the Fire Nation, and she was so _angry_ when she was dismissed and forced into Yugoda’s hut to learn healing instead of what she felt was true power. But the sea doesn’t only rage, and water isn’t just for fighting, and now she wishes, so much, that she’d been allowed to learn _both_.

The Southern Water Tribe has, effectively, built a camp in one of the outer gardens of the Fire Nation palace. Balloons are arriving every day with men of their tribe, scattered to prisons all across the Fire Nation after the invasion, now reunited at last. Most of them are thin from bad prison food, and many are injured, so what water healing Katara knows has become a part of every happy reunion. She doesn’t regret learning to fight as well as she did, but after the fighting is over, her people still need her. Water is the only element that _heals_, and Katara doesn’t know enough about _how_.

Everybody has work to do. Aang and Sokka have gone to Ba Sing Se to arrange a peace conference. Toph helped catch the general that tried to have Zuko assassinated, and now her lie-detection skills are in high demand to go through the rattle-vipers starting to slither back to the new Fire Lord’s court, and she really seems to be enjoying herself scaring the stuffing out of Fire Nation bureaucrats. Two of Suki’s squad have turned up too, and she’s keeping them in the camp, where they won’t have to encounter Azula, helping them get their bearings after being tortured and imprisoned, starting to train again to rebuild starved and wounded bodies. They need Katara’s healing as much as her own people do, but she can’t do _enough_.

This morning, she’s in the middle of working on Bato’s arm—if only she’d known how to heal back when she and Sokka found him on the beach, if only she’d trained from childhood back in the South Pole, if only she’d known what to do about the awful burns that keep his left arm stiff and full of pain, pain that she can lessen but not truly heal now that the scars have set—when the door to the main palace opens and, of all people, Iroh walks out to the camp.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he says, waving with a friendly smile. Toph grins, and Katara smiles and waves back, but the Water Tribe men and Kyoshi Warriors don’t. They’re tense enough about being in the Fire Nation royal palace, let alone in the presence of any Fire Nation soldiers, so for the most part the other inhabitants of the palace have been avoiding their wing except to deliver food.

“Morning, Uncle!” Toph calls. “What’s up?”

Iroh’s expression turns grave. “I have come to inform you of an inquest taking place this morning,” he says, “regarding a retired soldier named Yon Rha. He is being questioned on a report he filed eight years ago, where he claimed to have killed a woman—the last waterbender in the Southern Water Tribe.”

Eight years ago was when Katara’s mother died, and a storm rages inside of her at the memory. She takes her hands from Bato’s arm quickly as the healing glow of the water dies.

“Did anybody lose a waterbender eight years ago?” Hakoda asks, looking around. There are men from a dozen different tribes present, but all of them shake their heads.

“We haven’t had a waterbender in thirty years,” a man from one of the inland tribes says. “Or at least, if we have, they’ve kept it to themselves.”

“We’ve been raided plenty of times,” a man from one of the other coastal tribes says, “but we haven’t had a waterbender in a long time. Haven’t had any women killed in a long time, either… not _killed_, anyway,” he says with deep, bitter anger.

Iroh nods. “I thought it best to inform you of this trial, as it is relevant to your people. You have the right to attend if you wish.”

“I’ll go,” Dad says, standing up. “I’d like to see what justice looks like in the Fire Nation.”

“I’m coming too,” Katara says. Her father gives her a sad look, but doesn’t try to stop her. She wishes Sokka was here too, but he’s still somewhere in the Earth Kingdom with Aang, or maybe on their way to the North Pole by now.

Toph follows too, and so do Bato and a few other Southern men, muttering darkly about whether or not ashmakers can know justice. Iroh can probably hear them, but he ignores the mutters as he leads them through the palace, which is also getting busier by the day. Craftsmen are repairing damaged parts of the building, servants and courtiers are moving about the palace with food or letters or ledgers, guards are patrolling, and all of them stop to bow as Iroh and the Water Tribe entourage pass by. Katara tries not to look at any of them, especially not the guards in their helmets and armour. She’s still angry when she remembers her mother’s death, and she’s still angry when she remembers the way she opened up to Zuko about it, how she was foolish enough to think for a second that she could _trust_ him.

She’s still angry when she remembers that he has his mother back, _Azula_ has her mother back, and Katara never will. Her mother wasn’t even a warrior, she wasn’t even fighting, and she didn’t deserve to die, and the Fire Nation killed her anyway.

The trial is being held in a courtyard, open to the sky, even though it’s starting to rain a little. Katara isn’t too worried about the camp—they’ve set up some tents, but hardly need them, because the rain in the Fire Nation is light and warm, more like being in a warm bath than poor weather. Zuko’s in his chair on a dais, under a canopy to keep the rain off, and Iroh quietly suggests that those viewing the trial sit under the roofed walkways around the edges of the courtyard before climbing the dais to sit next to his nephew. Katara sits just outside of the walkway, letting the warm, gentle water soothe her, feeding into her as it feeds into the roots of a flower. There is also a Fire Sage, writing something down, and a few guards at precise intervals around the courtyard, the rain singing a little as it bounces off of their metal armour. Katara only looks long enough to see who’s there and then refuses to look at Zuko, instead closing her eyes and practices feeling the rain all around. She wonders if this is what Toph’s earth-sense feels like, seeing only her element and discerning the world from the gaps and breaks made in it. There are shapes where water flows over and around people, a cube delineated by rainwater falling off of the canopy on the dais, and then a new, moving gap of three people moving across the courtyard—two wearing metal armour that deflects the rain, one only wearing soft cloth clothes that the rain sinks into, finding the skinny shape within. Katara opens her eyes to see two guards escorting the man who, eight years ago, claims to have murdered one of her fellow waterbenders.

From a distance, all Katara can make out is that the murderer is a skinny, grey-haired old man. He has to cross the whole courtyard to reach the foot of the dais, then bows deeply, kneeling right to the ground, ignoring the mud that he’s pressing himself into.

“Fire Lord Zuko,” he says, “my name is Yon Rha, and it honours me to be in your presence.”

“Yon Rha,” Zuko says. His voice is getting louder and stronger, growing imperious and commanding again. “We have questions for you about a report you submitted eight years ago, concerning the death of a waterbender.”

The man straightens up, and smiles a proud smile that lights up his whole wrinkled face, and Katara gasps sharply because she _knows_ that face, when his lips are grinning and his teeth are bared and his eyes are glinting.

She’s seen that exact smile, on that exact face, standing over her mother.

“It’s him,” she says, shooting to her feet. “That’s him, that’s the man—!”

“Katara, are you sure?” her father asks, standing up and putting his hand on her shoulder. Katara can only nod, her hands shaking with rage but also all the _fear_ she felt back then, when she ran into her house and that man was there—

Yon Rha looks over at the Water Tribe contingent for the first time, the horrible grin going but it’s still _him_, Katara _knows_ him now. “My lord…?” he asks, looking from Zuko to the water tribe group.

“Do you recognize that girl, Yon Rha?” Zuko asks. “Look at her. Do you remember her?”

Yon Rha wipes some rain from his face and stares at Katara with dark orange eyes that she knows, she _knows_. This isn’t like when she has nightmares about her mother’s death, or when she imagines other Fire Nation soldiers being there that day—when she imagines Zuko or Azula being there. In those nightmares, things are fuzzy, nothing clear but the screaming. Now she can see this man with crystal clarity, taste the ash on her tongue, smell the stench of burning coal that clings to anybody who’s spent time on a Fire Nation ship.

She can hear her mother’s voice pleading with the soldier to let Katara go, _just let her go and I__’ll give you the information you want—_

“Yes… yes,” Yon Rha says quietly. “I remember you now. You’re the little Water Tribe girl…”

“_You_ killed my mother,” Katara snarls, stepping forwards. She can feel her father’s hand on her arm, hand tight and shaking, trying to hold her back, but he _can__’t_ hold back this anger and she doesn’t understand why he would try. He loved Mom too, didn’t he? Doesn’t he feel this _rage_ roaring inside of him?

“Yon Rha, it says here in your report that you killed a waterbender eight years ago,” Zuko’s voice says from a million miles away, “but according to our guests from the Water Tribe, Master Katara’s mother wasn’t a waterbender. You submitted a false report.”

“What? No!” Yon Rha says, whipping around to stare up at Zuko. “I submitted no false report, my lord—she _told_ me that she was the waterbender! She offered herself up to be taken prisoner, but orders were—”

“What?” Dad says. “But Kya wasn’t—” He inhales sharply, the realization hitting both of them at the same time. Katara can hear her heartbeat roaring like a wave in her ears as she _understands_ what Yon Rha is saying.

She finally knows who killed her mother, and she finally knows _why_.

“She lied to you,” Katara breathes. “She was protecting the last waterbender.”

“What?” Yon Rha asks, looking from her to Zuko again. “Who?”

_It was because of_ _—_

“ME!” Katara screams, and all that anger, _years_ of it, has boiled over, overflowing and _burning_, but she’s not a scared little girl anymore, she is the only Waterbending Master of the Southern Water Tribe, and they are _surrounded_ by water, all of it stilling at her command as she wrenches her arm out of her father’s grasp. Around them, above them, _all_ of it is _hers,_ all of it an extension of her _anger_, and she turns, pulls it all together into a storm of sharp, gleaming ice—

“Katara!” her father cries, and it vaguely penetrates the fog of her fury that they’re watching—her tribesman, Toph, her father. But Toph can hear when people are lying, she has to be able to hear what a monster this man is, and Dad loved Mom too, he _has_ to understand that this man doesn’t _deserve_ to live for what he did—

Yon Rha scrambles backwards, slipping in the mud. “My lord, please!” he screams, looking up at Zuko. “Please, I didn’t know—she said _she_ was the waterbender—!” Zuko doesn’t respond, and the killer looks to Katara instead, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. “Please, spare me—I have money, I can repay you, or—or you can kill _my_ mother, that would be fair, just please, spare me, I’ll give you whatever you want—”

“I want my mother back,” Katara snarls, “you pathetic little _worm_.”

That’s all she wants, and she can never, ever have it.

All at once, the anger is—not _gone_, but as overwhelming as it was, it’s still _drowning_ in the depths of her grief. Her mother is gone, gone, _gone_, but it’s not for no reason, it’s not meaningless, it’s not senseless, it’s because she gave up her life for Katara, and even greater than the anger and the grief is the _love_. All the anger and grief sprang from it, from how much she loved her mother, how much it hurts to be without her, but at the same time, every beat of her heart is now so precious, a precious gift that her mother gave her with her sacrifice, and the love is so vast and deep and _warm._

The icicles hit the ground instead of Yon Rha’s head, and Katara hits her knees, tears pouring down her cheeks and mingling with the rain. She feels her father’s arms wrap around her from behind, not holding her back but _holding_ her, feeling so strong and warm and _safe_ as they did when she was little enough to believe that her daddy could protect her from anything in the world. She sobs into his shoulder, and oddly, she remembers holding Aang like this, over Gyatso’s skeleton, when grief and loss and rage overtook him, too.

She can’t understand how he forgave the Fire Nation after that, but maybe, as Iroh said about Ba Sing Se, it’s not about forgiveness. Killing Yon Rha wouldn’t bring her mother back. Nothing would. And the life of this pathetic, sniveling coward isn’t worth a _fraction_ of what her mother was worth to her.

“You are charged with submitting a false report and the murder of an innocent civilian, Yon Rha,” Iroh says severely. “How do you plead?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—Guilty, of course, guilty, but please, _please_ spare me,” Yon Rha begs, on his knees, desperately pleading with Zuko. “I didn’t know—I was only following orders!”

“Your orders were to kill _waterbenders_, so you _didn__’t _follow them,” Zuko says flatly. “Before I pass judgment, tell me: would you have just followed orders if you knew that the waterbender you were looking for was just a little girl?”

“O-of course, my—” Yon Rha looks up at Zuko, then flinches. “I-I mean, of course _not_, I—please, _please, _I just, they’re only Water Tribe, I-I—”

He’s scrambling for the answer he thinks Zuko wants, whatever answer will save his hide. He doesn’t _think_. He doesn’t _care_.

“I always wondered what kind of person could do such a thing,” Katara chokes out. “But now that I see you, I think I understand. There’s just nothing inside you, nothing at all. You’re pathetic and sad and _empty_.”

She sees him, and only him, standing over her mother, and her mother, on her knees and yet standing so much taller than he could ever be.

“Yon Rha, I find you guilty of killing a non-combatant and submitting a false report,” Zuko says. For the first time since arriving in the courtyard, Katara looks up to the Fire Lord. He looks down at Yon Rha with an angry scowl, and while Zuko often looks angry, this is more than that. It’s disgust, too, at what he sees when he looks at Yon Rha, disgust that might just be as deep as Katara’s when she looks at this man, who murdered a brave woman, now grovelling like a coward for his worthless life. “Take him to the royal prisons.”

The guards bow and then drag Yon Rha to his feet, pulling him away between them, but Katara’s not looking at him anymore. She doesn’t _care_ about him.

“My lord,” the Fire Sage says quietly, “the Laws of War were written for conflict within the Fire Nation. They do not apply to the Water Tribes. Yon Rha’s only crime is making a false report…”

“Remind me,” Zuko says, turning that scary face of his on the Fire Sage, “who makes the laws in the Fire Nation?”

“The Fire Lord does,” Iroh puts in when the Fire Sage is quiet a moment too long.

“So who decides who the laws do and do not apply to?” Zuko asks.

“My lord—if you apply the Laws of War to the Water Tribes, to the _Earth Kingdom_, the sheer number of cases to try—you’ll be turning against your own armies!” the Fire Sage protests.

“I’m not saying I’m going to start a purge,” Zuko sighs, rubbing his eyes wearily with the heel of his bandaged hand. “Though I guess it _would_ give the military something to do instead of fighting a war. But when cases like this come up, we _are_ applying the Laws of War to _everybody_. I don’t believe that every soldier in the Fire Nation is like Yon Rha. I _know_ there are good, dutiful people serving the crown.”

“There are,” Iroh assures him, “and those that are good people, who know their duty, should not be unwilling to help root out those who do not. We will no doubt have deserters to deal with…”

“We’ll deal with that problem when we come to it.” Zuko looks down at Katara and bows his head. “I know this can’t make up for losing your mother, but I swear to you, that _isn__’t _what the Fire Nation is going to be, not anymore.”

“We understand,” Dad says. His voice is thick with tears, like he’s also overflowing with the grief, the loss, the _love, _struggling to get words past the reshaping of the old pain. His wife was a victim of the Fire Nation’s cruelty, but she was a hero of the Water Tribe, too. Katara hopes that helps, hopes that changes things for him the way it does for her. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“He will remain in prison at the Fire Lord’s pleasure,” Iroh says, “and as you may have noticed, the Fire Lord is rarely pleased.” Zuko gives his uncle a disgruntled look. “May I ask, Chief Hakoda—what would your tribe do with a man who has murdered an innocent woman?”

“We don’t have prisons,” Dad says shortly. “The other men would take him down to the water, and we’d see that he didn’t come back up again.” The other tribesmen nod in grim affirmation. Katara is fleetingly grateful that Aang isn’t here—he wouldn’t understand. But they can’t afford to keep murderers alive in the South Pole. Who can spare the food to keep somebody like that alive, when they can’t work to contribute to the tribe? Who can spare the warriors to guard somebody like that full-time?

The Fire Nation can. That’s why they’ve been able to return the Kyoshi Warriors and warriors of the invasion alive—alive, but starved and injured and suffering. Katara wishes a _lifetime_ of that suffering on Yon Rha, the lifetime that her mother never got, all of it knowing how cowardly and worthless he really is.

“I’m proud of you, Katara,” Hakoda says softly, wiping tears from her cheeks and cupping her face in his hands. “And Kya would be too. You hear me? Look at all you’ve done, this last year. You found the Avatar, you mastered waterbending—you saved the _world_!” He smiles tearfully at her. “Kya sacrificed herself for you. For her little girl. For this _hero_. And I think, if she’d known, she would’ve said it was worth it.”

It wasn’t random or meaningless. Her mother didn’t die for nothing. It was for _Katara_. So Katara has to be worth it.

She nods, gripping her father’s hands, then stands up. “I have something I have to say to Fire Lord Zuko,” she says, walking up to Zuko’s dais, holding out her hands. It’s so easy to call the rain over to her, but not in rage this time, because water is more than that. Zuko looks like he thinks she’s going to hurt him, leaning back a little in his chair. That’s probably fair. She’s been so _angry_ at him, but now she can’t see him standing over her mother, only Yon Rha. She can finally see Zuko for just _Zuko_, as he is right now.

“I forgive you,” she says.

She takes his broken hands and lets the healing flow, and Zuko exhales long and slow as pain lifts from his hands and weight from his shoulders.

“Were you going to let me kill him?” she asks as she works. The fingers are already splinted straight, the bones set back in place, she just has to encourage the jagged edges to knit together.

“I don’t think I could have stopped you,” Zuko says honestly. “Why didn’t you?”

“He deserved it,” Katara says quietly. “But he’s not a soldier anymore, just… a pathetic old man, grovelling on the ground. I don’t know if it’s because I’m too weak to do it or if it’s because I’m strong enough not to. All I know is, I’m not him. And neither are you.” She feels more strength under her hands, more solidity, so she pulls them and the water away, then unwinds the damp bandages.

Zuko flexes his fingers, hesitantly at first, and then curling them open and closed with a look of awe. Iroh gasps, but he’s smiling happily, tears in his eyes. “Thank you,” Zuko says, bowing his head to Katara, “and… I’m truly sorry about Ba Sing Se. I know I can’t make up for what I did. But I’m going to keep trying to do the right thing.”

“I already told you, I forgive you. Just… tell me something,” Katara says, clenching her fists. “You chose Azula at Ba Sing Se. Was that the right thing to do?”

Zuko closes his eyes. “No. It wasn’t,” he admits.

“Then why is it the right thing to do _now_?” Katara says sharply. She’s still _angry_ at him, but she thinks she can hear his voice more clearly now, now that she can’t hear her mother screaming whenever he opens his mouth.

“I don’t know,” Zuko says. “But I want to do the right thing for _everybody_. That includes her, as well as you and your people.” He flexes his fingers again, then runs his hands over each other. They’re a patchwork of jagged, shiny scars, now, and a couple are a little crooked, not quite right, but they work. “I don’t know if it’s the right thing for everyone. But I think it’s the right thing for me, and I hope it’s the right thing for her. She’s my _sister_.”

And boiling it down to _that_, at least, is something that makes _sense_. Azula is still a monster, but you don’t have to be a monster to love one. And somebody who _can_ love can’t be a monster. Katara can finally _see_ that, without her mother’s ghost clouding her eyes. She can’t see Zuko standing over her mother, only sitting here, sealing with his broken hands the letter that brought her father back to her, turning eyes of hate not on Aang but the man who killed her mother, still not quite knowing how to do the right thing but trying, trying, _trying_.

Katara finally feels ready to believe him.

“Let me know how those do,” she says, gesturing to his hands, “and I’ll come back tomorrow to continue the healing.”

Water is more than just rage, and for the first time in a long time, Katara feels like she is too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do think it's a shame we didn't get more time to see how Katara felt about discovering that her mother had sacrificed herself for her. I think "oh no, that's means my mother's death is MY FAULT" is a bit cliche and not a direction her thoughts would likely have gone in--she's spent a lifetime directing her rage at the Fire Nation, which is fair honestly, so she wouldn't put the blame anywhere but where it belongs, on Yon Rha. I think the real important change is in the context of Kya's death--it's not an act of random cruelty, it's a heroic act of self-sacrifice. And by that act of sacrifice, though she didn't know it, though she only intended to save her little girl, Kya saved the world. 
> 
> I also think it matters that she knows which specific person was responsible for the murder, rather than it just being "The Fire Nation" as an entity, and in this AU, she can actually SEE The Fire Nation as an entity enact punishment for her mother's death (even though it's kinda on a technicality bc racist legal systems... good thing Zuko doesn't give a shit). That anger and trauma also got specifically tangled up with Zuko when he betrayed them under Ba Sing Se, right after they'd made a connection through losing their mothers, and now she gets to cut that loose, and that's good for her as well as for Zuko. 
> 
> Unrelated, but I finally got around to reading "The Rise of Kyoshi" and holy shit you guys it's SO good. _So incredibly good_.


	9. How To Marry Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azula is not a fan of socializing, but she likes to be expedient, and she prefers to control what happens next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know they say "write drunk, edit sober"? I have done the opposite today. I'm worried this is a little messy, but I feel bad about not posting anything last week, so here we go. Azula's head is a mess right now anyway, no matter how she manages to pretend otherwise.
> 
> This chapter involves a lot of discussion of strategic arranged marriage, and a brief mention of how royalty tends to have a thing for marrying cousins.

Azula has a list. It is, traditionally, not a good thing to be on any list kept by the princess.

Shu’s retirement and Bujing’s arrest have silenced dissent in the War Council, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. There are plenty of men less high-minded than Shu and more patient than Bujing. Dissent will move secretly now, whispered in back rooms or stated obliquely over tea. Azula _could_ snoop and sneak and spy to find it, of course, but why bother? Everybody _knows_ she’s plotting against Zuko. Why wouldn’t she be? She’s smarter, more skilled, their father’s favourite, clearly the better candidate for the throne, but now Father isn’t here and Zuko has both the Avatar and General Iroh on his side, and so the sensible presumption is that she’s biding her time in preparation for a later coup. If this is what everybody knows, why not take advantage of it?

As in Ba Sing Se, the right clothing and makeup make all the difference.

Noble girls Azula’s age are expected to—and she cannot help thinking this in the very tone of disgusted boredom that Mai speaks of it with—_socialize_. It is not an activity that she’s ever taken any interest in, nor one that her father ever particularly encouraged, but it is the most expedient manner by which to gain access to the nobility of the Fire Nation, so she allows Mai to dress her and Ty Lee to do her makeup and as much as can be done with her hair, and she goes visiting.

Caldera City has inner and outer rings, just as Ba Sing Se does, it just isn’t so crass as to build huge walls between them. The people of the Fire Nation know their place, and the wealthy stay where they’re put as much as the poor do. It is deeply unsurprising how few noble families have fled the capital during the turmoil of recent weeks. Shut the doors of their estates and barred their windows, yes, as if not being able to see the Palace would protect them from the conflict within it and the consequences thereof—one of which is Azula turning up on their doorstep with a smile, Mai and Ty Lee at her elbows, asking after the health of such prominent subjects of the crown in these trying times.

Why bother going to all the effort of sneaking into an estate when propriety forces the inhabitants to invite you inside for tea?

Azula has a list, but it’s not written down anywhere, because she isn’t some schoolchild who needs to take notes to remember what’s important. Shu’s eldest surviving son greets her happily, an admission in and of itself, and all but winks at her over the cups as they discuss the new Fire Lord’s determination to end the war. His tone all but screams that he does not expect it to last, and he lets slip a disbelief that the Avatar has taken away Father’s bending at all, that he may yet return to the throne.

(Azula has seen Father, and he’s completely impotent now, resorting as he is to trying to manipulate her into doing everything for him. How else could he be reduced to such weakness?)

Bujing’s wife is a terrified waif of a woman, all but paralyzed into silence as she struggles to plead her loyalty to the crown without expressing disloyalty to her husband. Their only son died young, and the son-in-law they’ve adopted into their house is a stolid and not particularly bright man with nothing more to offer than repetitive pledges of loyalty to the crown and dull surprise at General Bujing’s actions. The daughter that he married does not make an appearance, so Ty Lee takes a trip to the water closet and later reports finding the woman in a back wing of the house, trying to keep her young children as far out of Azula’s sight as possible. Brighter than her husband, then, but no more of the conspirator’s temperament than her mother. They do not make the list, wholly useless to any faction.

Admiral He is more reserved, but he also does not hesitate to invite Azula into his home. He commends her, Mai and Ty Lee on their effective takedown of the assassins threatening Zuko’s life, and Azula smiles and assures him that the Fire Lord’s life is in her hands, and lets him infer what he will from that. The way he smiles speaks volumes, as does his assurance that the princess is of course always welcome in his home. He makes the list, of course. He was already on it, his loyalties so blatantly fenced that even Uncle picked up on it.

Halfway through a day of such little visits, she’s starting to wonder about Uncle and his tea. He’s been playing a long game, she can see that now, and the fact that he is not himself on the throne means nothing. Zuko _adores_ Uncle, and she can all but hear Uncle’s voice coming from Zuko’s mouth when he talks about peace, about justice, about reclaiming the Fire Nation from war. The Fire Lord dances on Uncle’s puppet strings while being the target of all the sympathy of other nations and the dissent in their own. She’s starting to suspect that Uncle is much more clever than he’s been acting, and that he never actually lost the ruthlessness that made him Grandfather’s favoured general.

(He was favoured over Father, just as Azula was favoured over Zuko, and that means that once, he was strong, he was ruthless, he didn’t fall prey to weaknesses like affection. He lost those strengths when Lu Ten died, when he fell from the throne and from power, and yet here he is on top again, so the only thing that makes sense is that he was merely pretending to be weak, playing the fool to make Father let his guard down, all the while fostering the loyalty of Zuko and the Avatar and setting them against Father. Well, two can play at that game, and Azula isn’t going to take six years to wax strong again.)

Lord Fujiwara greets her effusively, but there are cold patches during tea with him and his wife, and Azula all but laughs aloud when she realizes that the tension is directed not at her but at _Mai_. Of course, the Fujiwara family’s fortunes have always been built not on war but on producing beautiful firebending daughters who are always in high demand on the marriage market, and have regularly made their way to the beds of Fire Lords across the last few centuries. Their last success was her grandmother, Lady Ilah, and no doubt they have their eye on Zuko. They introduce their three daughters to Azula, prompt them to demonstrate their firebending, and all but have them show their healthy teeth and tail feathers. They are not subtle about foregrounding the eldest, who was betrothed in childhood to Lu Ten, but only came of age this last year, too late, far too late.

(_A stroke of luck_, Father had commented on the first anniversary of Lu Ten’s death, to Azula’s ears and Azula’s alone. _The Fujiwara girl will be impossible for her father to marry off after this. Seems we would have just wasted your hand. _She understood, later; there are many marriages of cousins in the royal line, to keep the blood of Agni strong, but she was too much younger, and so Lu Ten’s hand had gone to someone older, but not old enough. Her options remain open, and so do Zuko’s, and yet there are still expectations, there are politics, there is the looming shadow of fresh war. Is she truly free to do as she wishes when there are always spirits-cursed _consequences_ for her actions, consequences that she cannot always control?)

The girls join them for tea, all precise makeup and exact manners and conversation carefully calculated to display wit and intellect to the exact border short of showing off. Frost is forming on Mai’s forehead by the time they leave, little dispelled by Ty Lee’s assurances that those girls are _no _competition for her friend’s beauty or place in Zuko’s affections.

(Ty Lee’s right, of course, because Zuko is _soft_, she’s seen that every time he and Mai are together; soft, and easily swept up in silly romantic notions, and he’s proved it by resuming his relationship with Mai instead of setting his sights on a more advantageous match now that he’s on the throne. Mai is an excellent spy and knife-hand, but she’s of no status to match a Fire Lord, and if Zuko snubs the daughters of the house of Fujiwara in Mai’s favour, they will take it as an insult that will not be soon forgiven. Azula adds them to the list, because Zuko makes poor choices. She also adds all noble houses beholden or related to the Fujiwara, of which there are many. They will make a powerful enemy, or a powerful ally, if she plays her tiles smarter than Zuko, which isn’t hard.)

So the day goes, and Azula’s list grows, over tea and false smiles and letting Ty Lee and Mai handle the small talk while Azula handles what nobody says aloud.

(She doesn’t see Father all day. It’s almost peaceful. Maybe, like everybody else, he knows that she’s plotting against Zuko, and so leaves her to it.)

~F~F~F~

The next morning, Zuko comes to watch Azula training. He hasn’t done that since they were children, for the year or so that they were seeing the same tutor, after she caught up with him and before she surpassed him.

(There was a time, so distant as to be impossible for a lesser mind to remember, when she could watch Zuko do things that she couldn’t and be in awe. There was a time when Zuko would make fire in his hands just so she could watch it, because she loved the beauty of the flames, even as a child. The fool should have worked harder on his training instead of squandering his eighteen months of advantage on pretty lights.)

He can’t train, of course, unable to stand and move through the proper forms, or even the abnormal ones she saw him use in the Earth Kingdom. There were times when he’d whirl like an airbender, or make fire flow like water, as if imitating the people that he was hunting would make him any less incapable of capturing them.

(Azula hasn’t mastered the unusual forms herself, not yet. She’s already perfect on all the traditional forms, and a few she’s created herself, so she doesn’t _need_ such lesser forms, but anything Zuko can do, she can do better. She only practices them when she’s alone, because she doesn’t want anybody thinking that she’s a child imitating her big brother. She just has to be better than Zuko. She _has_ to. _Who are you_? He’d asked, and that’s part of the answer, and has been since she was old enough to _be_ anything more than a doll in a crib.)

Father commands her to turn her flames on Zuko, who is just _sitting_ there, wide open, unable to defend himself. Father makes an excellent target for the attacks that she’s practicing, always disappearing and then reappearing and screaming for Zuko’s blood. Doesn’t he trust that she knows what she’s doing?

“So,” Zuko says, when she pauses between sets, “how did your plotting go yesterday? Or was it scheming? I’m not sure of the difference. I figured you’d know.”

Of course Mai told him all about yesterday. Well, Azula knew from the start that Mai was here for Zuko, not her. Anything that she gets Mai involved in will get back to Zuko. But that’s potentially useful, if Azula plays it well, and Mai herself is still too handy to dispense with. She doesn’t like the excruciating banality of false smiles and small talk and playing the lady any more than Azula does, but she’s good at it, well-trained in the social arts by parents who never wanted a daughter but would settle for a classically proper lady if they had to. The only skills of Azula’s that are of interest to Father are her combat skills, chief among them her firebending, and her talent for strategy, because he didn’t want a proper lady, he wanted a Fire Lord. He let her skip out on tutors that bored her with things like deportment and poetry. Tea and conversation were, to his mind, entirely useless skills, skills he associated with Uncle.

(Uncle who has come out on top with Zuko as his heir after all, Uncle who many of the military families are looking to, not Father or Azula or Zuko. Uncle who is still here and has his firebending, unlike Father. Uncle who is probably lurking somewhere nearby in case she tries to kill Zuko. Uncle who loves Zuko and fears Azula, the same as everybody else.)

Of course, Zuko knows that she’s working to get her throne back, and has known it the whole time, and still he wants to be close to her, because he’s a fool. It lends an interesting dimension to this game.

“A scheme is better-planned than a plot,” she says casually, starting into the next set, “so naturally, I’m scheming. Settle something for me: are you going to marry one of the Fujiwara girls? You’ll make life much easier for yourself if you do. The eldest just came of age, and she’s quite lovely.”

Zuko groans, rubbing his face. His hands are no longer bandaged. Interesting. “I don’t like the idea of arranging marriage with some girl I’ve never met,” he says, “and I’m more than three years away from being of age myself, anyway.”

“You’re the Fire Lord,” Azula points out, letting the _for now_ hang in the air unsaid. They both know it’s there. “Securing your succession is a priority. Fire Lord Sanzo married shortly after his ascension to the throne at thirteen, as you’d know if you ever paid attention to your history tutors.”

(Younger than Azula was when she was crowned, but she is still the youngest _female_ Fire Lord in history. Securing her own succession would be more difficult at her age, however. It’s frustrating that she would have to do the difficult work of childbearing _herself_, on top of ruling, and the whole process sounds unpleasant from beginning to end and is dangerous to engage in before she comes of age, besides. Some cultures, inferior cultures, hold a woman dying in childbed to be equal to a man dying in battle, but that’s not a death that Azula is intending to risk. The drudge work that she is leaving to Zuko will take him a few years, no doubt, though Azula doesn’t intend to wait as long as her coming-of-age to reclaim her throne. But if he produces a firebending child of his own in that time, that solves the problem for her. Adopting an heir from within the family is the most expedient way to prevent a succession crisis.)

Zuko only grimaces at the prospect of getting to pick and choose between pretty girls to ensure his succession with, something any normal teenage boy would jump at, according to Ty Lee’s long, frustrated monologues on the subject. Of course, he’s not a normal boy, and nor can he jump. “I would recommend the youngest myself,” Azula continues. “Akiko. They’re all beautiful and graceful and skilled firebenders, naturally, but she has an admirable ferocity that I think your children would benefit from.”

“I’m not arranging any marriages,” Zuko says loudly. “Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not,” Azula says as she sweeps and counters imaginary opponents. “The House of Fujiwara is an undecided player at this time, and I’d like to be able to plan ahead. If you refuse them, they _will_ take it as a serious insult, you realize, _especially_ if you reject them for a disgraced daughter of the even more disgraced House Tamamuko—”

“I’m not getting married to Mai,” Zuko says, “but I only just made things right with her. I’m not about to just ditch her again.”

“She knows you’ll have to sooner or later, Zuzu,” Azula scoffs, rolling her eyes. “You may as well spare her by not dragging it out. You’re the _Fire Lord_ now. You have responsibilities to your people.” Isn’t that what he kept saying to her? That the Fire Lord had responsibilities to the country and the people, dull, _boring_ responsibilities?

“War first,” Zuko says. Well, that’s an attempt at prioritizing, she can concede. “And I _did_ pay attention to my history tutors, thank you, so I do _know_ that pissing off Fujiwara will bring me trouble I don’t need right now. Like I said, I’m not looking at marriage yet, so while that’s not a yes, it’s also not a _no_ so long as I’m not marrying anybody else, right?”

“Zuzu,” Azula laughs, finishing her set with a flourish, “are planning to _string Fujiwara along_? Why, that’s almost like manipulating them!”

“I’m not you, but I’ve picked up a thing or two,” Zuko says with a crooked grin.

It’s an amateur move, of course. Some houses will be desperate enough to wait on a “maybe”, but not houses as proud as Fujiwara, who will be watching their rivals like falcon-hawks. They will compete and push for assurances that Zuko will refuse to make, and they will hound Mai all the while. If they drive her away, Zuko will never forgive Fujiwara; if the relationship continues, Fujiwara will not forgive Zuko. The only escape from total enmity is for Zuko and Mai to break up again, entirely of their own accord. Azula could perhaps arrange that, if she so wished, but—

(They love each other. Ty Lee is widely adored. The Kyoshi Warrior’s reunion with the clever barbarian boy was downright sickening in their adoration. Even that waterbending savage is beloved. They all have love and Azula, who is perfect, who is powerful, who is beautiful, is not. All she has is fear.)

—why waste a good, juicy enmity? It’ll be such _fun_ to watch, like a sinking ship.

“I’m not arranging a marriage for you, either,” Zuko adds, which is somehow even more predictable than him refusing the Fujiwara. Technically, for the time being, he’s the head of the royal house and therefore theoretically has complete control over the issue of her betrothal, but realistically, he rules only so long as _she_ allows it, and he knows it.

(Some of the houses vying for Zuko’s hand also have eligible sons or nephews, so she could tie them to herself instead of Zuko, but it’s a play she can only make once, and not one she particularly relishes at that. A last resort, perhaps.)

“Mother did this to you, didn’t she?” Azula tuts. “Bewailing being separated from her peasant boyfriend for an arranged marriage. To no less than a _prince_. How _ungrateful_ of her.”

“I told you I’m not going to take anything from you, Azula,” Zuko says quietly, “and that includes your choices. What Grandfather and Ozai did to Mom was wrong. I’m trying to _not_ repeat those mistakes.”

“Fool,” Azula scoffs. “Can you really afford to throw away good allies so easily?”

“Oh nooooo, lots of people will hate me, I wonder what that’s like,” Zuko says, so dryly that it’s a wonder his breath doesn’t catch like tinder. Azula laughs. Very occasionally, Zuko is funny on purpose. “Do you really think it was wrong of Mom to be upset that she was separated from the people she loved?”

“Has it not occurred to you that, if she wasn’t, neither you nor I would exist?” Azula points out. “Well… _I _wouldn’t.”

“Me, neither,” Zuko says quietly. “I asked.”

(They share a father, the husband that Mother hated. The flaw is in Zuko’s character, not his bloodline. The only difference between them is that Zuko is weak and Azula is not. He is loved, and she is feared. That makes sense, because she knows that love is weak, a petty and volatile and fleeting feeling, and yet, she can’t stop _wanting_—)

“Is that why she went back to Hira’a when she was banished from the palace?” Azula realizes. Ursa talks to Zuko, tells him things that she doesn’t tell Azula (and so did Father—) “For her peasant boyfriend?”

“His name is Ikem, and you know that,” Zuko says levelly. “Would it be so wrong if she did find him there?”

Azula finishes a set, stopping to look thoughtfully at Zuko. “It would be _treason_,” she points out, “as she was _banished_, not divorced. Then again, treason is nothing new to her, is it?”

(Adultery is hardly anything, not really. Love is too petty and fleeting for something as important as marriage, but the citizens of the Caldera would have nothing at all to gossip about if it was not something freely indulged in by many. But _murder_, now, taking poisoned hands to your father-in-law, no less than the very Fire Lord himself, for _nothing_—)

Zuko, at last, looks tense, and Azula remembers his fear. He doesn’t fear for his own life, but he fears for Mother’s, and probably also for Uncle, for Mai—

Love is _such_ a weakness.

“If you’re planning to stir up trouble for her by spreading that around,” Zuko says quietly, “it won’t work. I can pardon her. I’m the Fire Lord now, and she did it to save my life.”

Azula laughs again. So does Father. “An idiot, like his mother,” he sneers. “Easier to play than a child’s whistle!”

“She saved _nothing_,” Azula giggles. “Really, Zuzu. I must have told you that Father was going to kill you a hundred times, and you believed me _every_ time!”

Zuko blinks at her with that wide-eyed, confused look he always got, that any minute will turn to anger that she lied to him _again_, as if it’s anything new. “But this time, Grandfather—”

“You really _believed_ that Grandfather was going to throw away a _second_ grandchild so soon after Lu Ten’s loss?” Azula scoffs. “He still favoured Uncle, idiot, and Uncle’s line was broken! He was going to have Uncle _adopt_ you!”

Zuko inhales sharply, newly-visible fingers going white as he grips the arms of his chair. “Grandfather was…?”

“You and Mother believed that _silly_ lie, and she killed him for _nothing_!” Azula bends double, laughing so hard that her stomach is starting to hurt. “She didn’t save your life—she _ruined_ it!”

(Zuko would have been Crown Prince anyway, but he would have gone away, to be spoiled and doted on by Uncle instead of burned and banished by Father, he would have gone away and Azula would hardly have seen him the way they hardly ever saw Lu Ten, and no matter how much better than him she was he’d still be Crown Prince and she’d be _nothing_, she’d be alone with Mother’s indifference and Father’s impotent rage with no Zuko to be favoured over—)

“You gave me the crown, Azula,” father purrs. “Well done, daughter. Now _take it back_.”

Tears are streaming down Azula’s cheeks from the hilarity of it all. One little lie did _so much_ because she didn’t anticipate that Mother and Zuko would be stupid enough to believe it. Actions have consequences, words too, and Azula _has_ to anticipate them if she’s going to remain in control, if she’s going to stop everything from spiraling out of her grip—

“Azula,” Zuko says, “it wasn’t your fault.”

“What are you _talking_ about, Zuzu?” Azula gasps, fighting to control her breath, why is _that_ slipping out of her control, too? She controls who wears the crown of the Fire Nation, why can’t she control _that_?

“You said it yourself,” Zuko says with a shrug. “It wasn’t he first time you told me that Father was going to kill me. I know you thought it was funny, watching me panic. I went to sleep that night telling myself _Azula always lies_, like I always did. And Mom went to talk to… to Ozai.” He grimaces. “And he told her that it was true. That he was going to kill me, unless Mom made a deal with him. It wasn’t you, Azula. It was _him_.”

“I _deserved_ the throne,” Father hisses. “I was superior to that old fool Iroh! Are you not superior to your weak, pathetic brother? Slay him and _take it_! Or are you even weaker than _him_?”

“Shut UP!” Azula screams. “How _dare_ you call _me_ weak! When did _you_ fight Uncle, Oh mighty Phoenix King? If you were so powerful, why not face him _yourself? _You weren’t even strong enough to face an old decrepit like _Grandfather_ yourself!”

“How _dare_ you speak to me that way!” Father snarls. “How _dare_ you show such _disrespect_—”

He spoke to Zuko as such, once, looming over him like this, but with fire in his hands then, and now he can do _nothing_ to Azula. “So _great_ and _powerful_ that you needed your nonbending peasant wife and a little girl to do your dirty work for you?!” she screeches. “You can’t take _anything_ for yourself, least of all the throne! At least _I_ could have slain Long Feng where he stood had I wished to!”

“Azula!” Zuko shouts. “He’s not even here, Azula!”

“You hear that?” Azula giggles, blue flame blooming in her hands. “You’re not even _here_, and I _am_!”

In a flare of blue, Ozai is gone, and this time does not reappear. Only Zuko, struggling to wheel himself _closer_ to her when she’s throwing fire around, because he’s an _idiot_.

But he knows, now, he _knows_ how much Azula took from him—

“I took the throne away from you before,” she snarls, scratching tears from her cheeks, “and I’ll do it _again. _I’m not a _child_ anymore, Zuko. Next time, I’ll take it for _myself_.”

“Well, I’m meeting the finance ministers this afternoon to talk about what ending the war is going to cost,” Zuko says, reaching up to adjust the too-large crown in his ill-fitting wig, “so you might want to do it later.”

Azula doesn’t school her features quickly enough. Zuko sees what she thinks of talking to the finance ministers, and grins.

(He always believed her as a child. When did he start knowing when she lies?)

Everybody knows that Azula’s plotting against Zuko. Azula knows that people love Zuko, and fear her. And Zuko knows that she lies. It’s all twisted so far that it’s almost straightforward.

But now she can anticipate, and so she can _choose_. She just doesn’t have to choose _now._

She can keep her options open.

“Oh, alright, then,” she sighs, straightening up, her cheeks dry, her hair falling back into place. “Stop gawking at my training and get to work, Zuzu. I’ll most likely kill you _tomorrow_ morning.”

(It’s a move she can only make once.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Interesting thing I've been reading about: while the Japanese Imperial family tree does tend to have a lot of cousin marriage (and some... aunt/nephew and uncle/niece marriage...) they don't seem to have ended up in a Hapsburg situation because while European royalty was traditionally made up of monogamist Christians, Japanese Emperors tended towards having a bunch of wives and consorts and LOADS of kids, so the family was more... spread out, as it were. Egyptian dynasties also did this, but since they also tended towards brother-sister marriage, it... didn't always help. (Watch Overly Sarcastic Productions' video on the Ptolemies sometime. You could not make that shit up.)
> 
> Fujiwara is the name of a real-life Japanese clan that absolutely dominated the Heian era due to, as described here, regularly marrying their daughters to Emperors. They remained extremely politically powerful all the way to the Meiji Era, and the family still exists and still occasionally marries into the current Imperial Family. 
> 
> I've probably mentioned it before, but twenty is culturally the age of adulthood in Japan, and I'm putting it down as being of age in the Fire Nation. Despite what greasy weirdos with bad takes on Romeo and Juliet would have you believe, it has been known throughout most of human history around the world that it's a bad plan for girls to get pregnant and have babies during their teenage years, through the simple scientific method of noticing how fucking horrible it is to die in childbirth and how much more often it happens to underdeveloped girls (and due to poor diet, the majority of girls until the last century or so didn't even start menstruating until late teens anyway). It was common in a lot of places, amongst the nobility, to arrange marriages between children but not actually formally carry them out until adulthood. Pushing a marriage and children too early could kill the female partner which, at its most cold-blooded, would be a waste of a marriage deal, especially if the child also died (which was likely).


	10. How To Do The Right Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aang seeks the advice of his past lives. Which wasn't all that helpful last time, but this time he doesn't know what answer he wants from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure I can't say it enough that _Rise of Kyoshi_ has some truly fascinating shit in it, not least the morality discussions Kyoshi has about killing and justice, which were very necessary to help her escape the fanon flanderization of solving all of her problems with murder. I put a few more of my own headcanons into how Aang interacts with the past Avatars here. Watch all of my thoughts on Kuruk be completely invalidated by _Shadow of Kyoshi_ coming out this month :P
> 
> Also, I've probably mentioned it before, but I headcanon there being several more generations between Roku and Ursa than them being grandfather and granddaughter, so talking about Zuko's relationship to Roku tends to be in terms of "ancestor/descendant" rather than anything else.

It feels good to be in the air again.

Aang’s missed this—the wind over his scalp, the nice sound of Appa’s fur rustling in the breeze, the sight of the world passing by beneath them. It’s like things are back to normal, instead of the weird tension at the Fire Nation palace—

But then, wouldn’t _back to normal_ mean being back at the Southern Air Temple, or with Monk Gyatso? Shouldn’t _normal_ mean how he spent the first twelve years of his life, not the last eight months?

He can’t go back and live at the Southern Air Temple—aside from his duties as the Avatar, it would just feel too horrible to be there alone. Monk Gyatso is gone, and so are the rest of his people, and that still _aches_, even as he reminds himself that his people will have been reincarnated, that he can see that the world is safe for their new lives, that the world is still full of their love in new forms. But he can’t quite go back to the way things were before they fought Ozai, either. Mostly, that’s a good thing—no being hunted, no being chased, no always having to fight firebenders. He wants to just take Katara and Sokka and Toph and Suki and go back to flying around the world, showing them all the cool things Gyatso showed him, meeting weird animals, enjoying the _peace_—

Except it’s not exactly peace, is it? It’s all so much more complicated than just defeating Ozai, and as the Avatar, he has work to do. He’s not flying Appa to some fun holiday spot. He’s flying Appa to Ba Sing Se to talk to Earth King Kuei and the White Lotus about arranging a peace conference with Fire Lord Zuko.

At least he’s not going alone. Sokka is napping in Appa’s saddle. He’s good at bringing people together and fitting in wherever he goes, whether it’s Kyoshi Island or the Northern Water Tribe or even the Fire Nation. Aang trusts that his friend will know what to say if Aang falters in arranging the peace conference.

It’s a hundred years late, but he finally has the chance to make things right and stop the war. He _can__’t_ get this wrong. If he does…

He doesn’t want to wake Sokka, but he doesn’t want to be alone with his darkening thoughts, so his closes his eyes, folds into a meditative pose, and reaches out. In the space of a breath, Roku is smiling at him.

“Well done, Aang,” the former Fire Nation Avatar says. “I am prouder than I can say to see you finally end the war…” He bows his head. “The war which _I_ failed to prevent. You are a true Avatar.”

“Thank you, Roku,” Aang says, bowing his head back, one of the many little knots in his gut unfolding. “You’re not angry that I didn’t kill Ozai?”

“True, he lives,” Roku allows, “but without his firebending, he has no right to the throne of the Fire Nation, and can no longer lead any war. To remove his firebending…” He closed his eyes, sighing. “Had I known how… I wonder if I would have had the strength to do so to Sozin.”

“But wouldn’t it have been better? You would have been able to stop him without killing your friend…” Aang hesitates. “_Would_ it have been better? Everyone thinks… losing your bending must be so awful that it would be better to die. And I… I can’t _imagine_ being without my airbending, but…” He clenches his hands in his lap. “Life is sacred! Isn’t _any_ life better?”

“Not always,” Roku says quietly. “Not to our people, at least. Gyatso and I spent many hours debating this when we were young. Your people hold all life sacred; that even in times of suffering, there is hope in the world, and love, things worth living for. But our people have often found nobility in ending a life of suffering, and honour in sacrificing one’s own life for the good of others. I knew Sozin well in our boyhood, and though I did not know him as well as I’d like as a man, I still knew him. He would rather that I killed him than condemn him to live without his fire.” He quirks an eyebrow. “I know that you have no intention to cause suffering, Aang. You seek only to uphold the values of your people. But Ozai, too, from what I know of him… he would rather be dead than to live with the humiliation and cold that he does now.”

Aang bites his lip. “So… was it more cruel for me _not_ to kill him?” he says quietly.

“By the values of the Air Nomads, no. You have offered him the chance to reflect on himself and his shortcomings, and to become a better man, and perhaps to one day live a better life. By the values of the Fire Nation?” Roku nods tersely. Despite being a firebender, his voice has turned to ice. “Yes. It is cruel, though perhaps no more than he deserves.”

“You _hate_ him,” Aang realizes. “You really hate Ozai, don’t you?”

Roku sighs. “I was an Avatar, and thus remain part of your spirit, but my spirit is not bound to yours alone, Aang. I am an ancestor as well as an Avatar.” He quirks a little smile. “Even as I died, I could know that my daughter had escaped the eruption safely, and her daughter with her. I know the lives of my descendants… including Ursa and her children, Zuko and Azula.” His expression darkens. “I have no memories to show you, Aang, but understand that I know deeply how they have all suffered at Ozai’s hands. Yes, Aang. I know I should be more detached, as Avatar, but yet, I do despise Ozai.”

Aang remembers visiting Kuzon’s house, seeing the family shrine where they kept pictures of their ancestors. He thought it was terrifying, the idea that family attachments could trap a person’s soul in the world after death, but Gyatso had explained to him that each nation and each people had different ways of achieving peace, and that that was okay. The journey to peace and enlightenment is an individual one, with no single fixed path that suits every person in the world. Still, if Roku’s attachment to his family drags him down this long after his death, causing hatred to build in his soul, the way losing her mother poisoned Katara…

It isn’t his place to counsel Roku on his feelings, though, only to seek his advice on Aang’s choices. He pushes away the fear that such attachments are dangerous, focusing on what he needs to talk about with somebody who might understand the magnitude of the decision he’s facing, the decisions of an Avatar with no higher authority to appeal to. “What about Azula?” he asks. “Iroh thinks I should take her bending, but Zuko… Zuko thinks it would be worse than killing her…”

“Iroh has told you how he has spent a long, long time immersing himself in the culture and spirituality of other nations.” That’s true. While training to fight Ozai, Iroh had asked all sorts of questions about Air Nomad philosophy, not just airbending, and had talked with Katara and Toph about their cultures, too. It was… nice, to get to talk about his culture that way, his people, their values, with somebody who already knew a surprising amount and found it all interesting. Even the value of life and the importance of compassion, things that seemed sometimes to have been lost completely in the war. “It is unlikely that he feels the same on matters of life and death as others of the Fire Nation. Perhaps he feels, as you do, that it would be kinder to allow her to live, while removing the opportunity for her to harm others. Azula is very much like her father, however. If you did remove her bending, as an alternative to killing her… I fear that she would settle the matter herself.”

Aang inhales sharply. “You mean she’d—?” Honour suicide. It was a part of many Fire Nation stories. Aang thought that an old story was all it was, not something that people still _did_! “She’s really, _really_ scary, but I don’t want her to _die_!”

He doesn’t want anybody to die. He _never_ wanted anybody to die. There’s no getting better if you’re dead, no making up for your wrongs, no chance to become a better person. You’re just _dead,_ and does that really make things better for anybody else?

“Nor do I,” Roku says heavily. “She is my descendant, as much as Zuko and Ursa. But she and Zuko are also children of Ozai, descendants of Azulon and Sozin. My affection for Sozin clouded my judgment and prevented me from doing what, for the good of the world, needed done. I counsel you as I have counseled you before, Aang: do not repeat my mistakes.”

Aang pulls away from Roku, his stomach lurching. He’s scared of Azula and her lightning, scared of her wild eyes and cruel words, but somehow, driving her to kill herself doesn’t feel different from killing her himself. Roku’s attachments to his descendants tie him to the world, make him _despise_ a man born long after he died, but how can he claim to be attached to them and yet advocate for Azula’s death?

The treacherous thought rises again in his mind that if Roku had killed Sozin, the Air Nomads would still be alive. That maybe Roku _should_ have killed Sozin.

But would it really have been right to kill somebody for something he hadn’t done _yet_?

What’s the _right_ thing to do?

He didn’t intend to speak to Kyoshi, but there she is, tall and strong and looking at Aang with great sorrow. “Avatar Kyoshi,” Aang says, bowing his head to her. “You once told me that only justice will bring peace. The Kyoshi Warriors told me the same thing. But I’m… I’m scared that I don’t know what justice is. I found a way where I didn’t have to kill Ozai, but people keep telling me that what I did was _worse_, and that he deserved it, and I’m not sure if I should have done it to Azula too, or if it would just make things worse…” He hangs his head in his hands. “I found a way to stop people like him without having to kill them,” he mumbles. “So why am I so confused about what the _right_ thing to do is?”

“The questions you ask are not ones with simple answers, Aang,” Kyoshi says. Her voice is deep and rich as earth, and he’s always found it weird that such a famed warrior, who admits so easily to having killed her enemies, sounds so soothing. “Allow me to ask you a question. An exercise, if you will. Two people stand before you. Both have committed the crime of theft. Should they receive the same punishment?”

“Well… yes?” Aang guesses, blinking up at her. “If they committed the same crime, they should have to face the same consequences. Isn’t that fair?”

“Perhaps,” Kyoshi says flatly. “That is the basis of many justice systems in this world, which look only at the crime. Now, let us look at the criminals. One is a boy, young and starving. He is dying for want of food, and he stole bread to eat. The other is a lord, fat and wealthy, who rules over dozens of farms. His theft is of the crops from those farms, which he does not need, but by selling them he can become richer, while his people starve. Now, knowing this, should these two receive the same punishment?”

“What? No! That’s not the same at all!” Aang exclaims. “The boy—he _needed_ what he was stealing, and the lord didn’t! It’s not fair to treat them the same at all!”

Kyoshi nods. “Justice is not easy, Aang. Laws and rules are written in an effort to make it so—if this crime, then that punishment. But no two people are the same, and circumstances shift and change. What may have been right to deal with Sozin may not be what is right to deal with Ozai, and Azula is different again.” She sighs. “Roku ever struggled with his convictions, but what else should be expected of a noble born in one of the highest houses in the Fire Nation? Those born of his class rarely have to face justice, because it is they who write the laws. But the world is not so simple, Aang.”

“You’re saying… that the right thing to do is going to keep changing?” Aang throws his hands up in frustration. “Then how does _anybody_ know what the right thing to do ever is?!”

Kyoshi taps him on the forehead, right on the point of his arrow. “You _think_, Aang. You are the Avatar. _You_ must think on the challenges that you face, and decide for yourself what is just, and all the world will look to you. It is a heavy burden, and you may be too young to carry it, but nevertheless, it is yours.” She settles back. “I do not know if I could have made use of your gift for energybending. I do not think it would have been enough to settle the challenges that I faced, and I do not think you would have survived long in my times of turmoil. But then, I do not know that I would be capable of building peace in yours.” She folds her hands in her lap. “I offer you one more piece of advice, Aang: we, your past lives, may give you our wisdom, but it is the wisdom of our own time. It is not only people who change. The world does, too, and you are the Avatar of a different world than Roku or I. Only justice will bring peace, but in the end, the decision of what is just is yours and yours alone.”

With that, she is gone, and Aang’s head is only spinning even more.

He kind of wants to talk to Yangchen, but it feels like it would be rude to skip Kuruk, so he calls out to the last Water Avatar, and as soon as he does, there Kuruk is, a big man in furs who smiles warmly at Aang. “Energybending,” Kuruk chuckles. “Well done, Aang. I never would have imagined something like that, let alone had the will to pull it off!”

“Avatar Kuruk,” Aang says, greeting him with a bow as he did to the others. “I guess… I’m still confused about whether it was the right thing to do, to take Ozai’s firebending. Roku thinks it was, but because he thinks Ozai deserves to suffer, and that’s not why I did it. Kyoshi says it’s up to me to decide if it was right or wrong…”

“Aang…” Kuruk sighs, smile fading. “Right and wrong… I didn’t think about it much when I was alive. I preferred to let people settle their own problems… which, in practice, usually mean that the people around me were handling duties that I ought to have shouldered.” He grimaces. “I cannot tell you how greatly Kyoshi suffered for my failures, Aang. No matter how difficult your duties as the Avatar are, they must be faced by _you_.”

“I don’t want to run away!” Aang protests. “…Again. Roku blames himself for the war, but I… if I hadn’t run away…” His vision blurs with tears. “I don’t want to run away, but… I’m scared that I’ll do something _wrong_…”

“I never had any children, did you know?”

Aang wipes his eyes so he can stare at Kuruk. “Huh?”

“Took me too long to get myself together enough to be worth the love of a good woman,” Kuruk says with a crooked smile, “and then Koh… point is, I never had any children. I always wanted to, though. I was a man of the Southern Water Tribe, after all. I spent as much time looking after the children of the tribe as anybody else. You might find it familiar, the way our tribes often raise our children communally, though everybody goes back to their parents’ tent at the end of the day. I think there’s nothing more wonderful than watching them grow into the people they become. And that involves getting things wrong, and making mistakes, because those are the best way to learn.” He leans forwards, and to Aang’s surprise, pulls him into a somewhat ethereal hug. “I’m sorry you don’t get to make mistakes, Aang,” Kuruk says softly. “I’m sorry that you had to become the Avatar so soon. This never should have fallen on you so young, and you are far, far braver than you should have to be. And if I was your father, I would be so proud of you.”

Aang’s eyes sting again as he finds himself clinging to the memory of Kuruk’s furs. _I suppose you wouldn__’t know of fathers, being raised by monks,_ Zuko said on the day they met, and he was right, sort of. Aang knew what fathers were, but he’d never known one growing up; he and the other children shared the love of all of the nuns and monks, and he was lucky enough to have Gyatso as a mentor. Kuruk is reminding him a little of Sokka and Katara’s father, who hugs a little like this, radiating such _warm_ love.

He can’t imagine that Ozai ever hugged Zuko and Azula like this. Ozai and Hakoda are both fathers, but they couldn’t be more different. Why would the Fire Nation let somebody as cruel as Ozai be a father? Their _leader_?

“But it’s also _because_ you’re a kid, Aang, that doing the right thing isn’t always on you,” Kuruk says, letting go of the hug but keeping his hands almost-touching Aang’s shoulders as he gives his reincarnation an intent look. “Ozai is an adult, and a father, and a leader. It’s on _him_ to do the right thing, and he didn’t, and that means he has to face the consequences of his actions. If it doesn’t feel good to mete out punishment, well, that’s just because it _shouldn__’t_ feel good. Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need to be done.” He smiles. “You’re a good kid, Aang, with a good heart. Trust it. And remember this, Aang: just because there doesn’t seem to be a _right_ thing to do, doesn’t mean you should do nothing. Sometimes, the best you can do is stop a _wrong_ thing. That’s not your fault. That’s just life.”

With a last encouraging smile, Kuruk is gone.

Aang’s not sure if it’s the hug or the advice, but he _does_ feel a little better. He was getting so tied up in knots about what _he_ did that he was starting to forget what _Ozai_ was going to do, and there’s no _way_ that burning down the Earth Kingdom would _ever_ be the right thing. Does it matter _how_ he stopped Ozai, so long as he stopped him?

…It does matter, though. It matters to him. It matters to…

He remembers the Great Yangchen, from when he was little at the Eastern Air Temple. He was so relieved to see that it’s still there, that the Fire Nation didn’t destroy _everything_. The spirit before him is not thirty feet tall, of course, but she’s just as still and serene as she waits patiently for him to speak.

“Avatar Yangchen,” he greets her formally. “I… I need to hear it from you. As an Air Nomad. Are you…” His voice sticks in his throat, and he wishes Kuruk hadn’t made him cry, because tears feel so much closer now.

“Yes, Aang,” Yangchen says softly. “I am prouder than I can say that you did not kill Ozai. Your discovery of energybending would have been praised by Air Nomads the world over. By removing the instrument by which a bender like Ozai may hurt others, you decrease the suffering in the world. By sparing his life, you respect the sanctity of life and show great compassion, and you allow him the chance to reflect on himself and seek atonement, instead of dying with his karma so thoroughly tainted.” She smiles. “You must do what is best for the world, always, Aang. And you did, while finding a way to stay true to our people. Yes, I am proud.”

Aang clutches his stomach as tears pour down his cheeks, more knots untangling themselves. He hadn’t realized quite _how much_ he needed to hear that from another Air Nomad. “I… I increased his suffering, though,” he chokes out.

“His suffering is not equal to the suffering he would have caused, had he kept his bending,” Yangchen reminds him, “nor indeed is it equal to the suffering he has _already_ caused.”

Aang thinks of Zuko’s scar, his other injuries, and Azula screaming at her father’s phantom— “What about Azula?” Aang asks. The scars on his back and foot itch. “She tried to kill me before. She’s so dangerous, but… Zuko asked me, if I couldn’t take her bending, would I be planning to kill her instead? And I don’t think I could do that. But… does that mean I shouldn’t take her bending away?”

“Why have you not done it until now?” Yangchen queries. She doesn’t sound like she’s judging Aang for it, just… curious.

“I guess… I haven’t _had_ to,” Aang allows. “We’ve been able to… pin her down, with earthbending, or…” He winces when he thinks of Katara bloodbending. She _hates_ it, and bloodbending is _horrible_, but… maybe it’s not right, but it stops Azula doing something even _more_ wrong by killing people, so maybe, like Kuruk said, it’s needed. “And I guess… her mother and Zuko have been able to talk her down. Calm her down. So I haven’t _had_ to take her bending to stop her from killing people…”

Yangchen nods. “You act to avoid unnecessary cruelty. Those are fine priorities for an Air Nomad, but you must remember—”

“I know, I know, I’m the Avatar,” Aang says in exasperation. “But I’m also the _only_ Air Nomad. If I give up our values to be the Avatar… won’t it be like there’s _no _Air Nomads? How does the world stay in balance _then_?”

Yangchen blinks at him. He realizes, guiltily, that it was rude of him to interrupt her, but he’s… he’s _sick_ of hearing about how he has to think of everything the way other nations do. Who’s thinking about how _his_ nation does things? The Fire Nation’s way of doing things plunged the world into a hundred years of war!

“I had… not considered your dilemma in those terms,” Yangchen muses at last. “All Avatars struggle, to some degree, with reconciling their position in the world against their feelings for their home and their people. But you _are_ our people now.”

“Exactly!” Aang says in relief. “I took Ozai’s bending instead of killing him because that’s not our way. But Azula’s different from Ozai.” Look at the criminals as well as the crimes, Kyoshi said, though Azula isn’t trying to burn down a whole continent. Aang’s not sure _what_ she’s trying to do just now. He wonders if Azula, who screams at Ozai when he isn’t there, even knows herself. “She’s _scary_, but she’s… she’s just another kid. Ozai’s a grown-up. He’s supposed to know better. It’s not Azula’s fault if she doesn’t, is it?”

He’s always wanted to believe in the good in Zuko, ever since Pohuai Stronghold, if everyone would just give Zuko a _chance_. Azula’s his sister. There must be some good in her, too, even if it’s buried much deeper.

…Much, _much_ deeper, probably. But there, all the same.

“We are all of us responsible for our own spirits,” Yangchen tells him, “but… it is true that a child is not responsible for their own misleading. Nevertheless, if you choose to let her retain her bending, you bear some of the responsibility for what she does with it. Are you prepared for that, young Aang?”

He remembers the dead bodies in the infirmary with a swooping stomach. Those guards wouldn’t be dead if he’d taken Azula’s bending before then…

…but then… if Azula hadn’t been able to kill them, they would have killed Zuko while he was too weak to fight back, and they might have killed Azula too, once they knew that she couldn’t firebend…

“Avatar Yangchen?” he asks. “When I was growing up at the temples… the monks always said that harming others was wrong, and would taint your karma. Is it even wrong when you’re protecting yourself from somebody who’s trying to hurt you?”

“No,” Yangchen says firmly. “I am sorry that you could not reach adulthood among our people, Aang. There are many of our precepts that are taught to children only in their simplest form, the complexities to be explored and learned through discussion and debate once you are grown. The world is a complex place, and harm is inescapable. You should not seek to harm others, but nor should you allow yourself to be harmed. Self-defense is no evil.”

“Even to the death?” Aang asks quietly.

“Even then,” Yangchen replies. “The ill intent of one intending to kill is a far, far greater evil than the will of one intending only to defend their life, or defend the life of a loved one. It stains the soul, nevertheless, but even you, the Avatar, are not responsible for the evil of others.”

Aang takes a deep breath, and nods. _Do not repeat my mistakes. Only justice will bring peace, but in the end, the decision of what is just is yours and yours alone. You have a good heart, trust it. You are not responsible for the evil of others._

“Thank you, Avatar Yangchen,” he says, bowing again. “Can I call on you again? I need to know more about… us.” He’s about to turn thirteen. He knows there are rituals and festivals that he was too young to take part in, complexities of their beliefs that he wasn’t privy to, whole swathes of their culture that he knew nothing of due to being the preserve of elders and nuns. If he’s the only Air Nomad, he _has_ to know.

He couldn’t keep his people alive, but he can preserve their history, culture and way of life. He can preserve what they believed in.

Yangchen bows with a little smile, and then she’s gone, and Aang is aware that the sun is going down. Appa isn’t pushing himself like he did in the rush from Ba Sing Se to the Fire Nation, and the wind isn’t at their back, so it’s going to take a couple days.

“Let’s find somewhere to land and make camp, buddy,” Aang says, petting Appa’s enormous head. The sky bison yawns in agreement and dips.

“Wha—!” Aang giggles at the noises Sokka makes as he’s startled awake, and turns to look as his friend flops over the edge of the saddle, rubbing his eyes. “Evening already?” Sokka yawns. “Sorry, Aang. Guess I kinda left you alone all day, huh?”

“I talked to past Avatars,” Aang says. “Avatar Kuruk gives hugs just like your dad!”

“Hugbending is a fine art of the Southern Water Tribe,” Sokka says as Appa drifts into land, hauling himself over the saddle and sliding down to sit next to Aang, “and it looks like you could use another one.” Aang gratefully leans into the warmth of the very _real_ hug, wiping the last of his tears off on Sokka’s shoulder.

Gyatso is gone, and his people are gone, and his mentors are simply ghosts in his mind. But Aang still has people who love him. He still has _family_. So much has changed, but through it all, he’s never, ever had to be alone, and knowing that he never will makes everything seem just that bit more manageable.

“Thanks, Sokka,” he says when he lets go. “Before we get to Ba Sing Se, I have some ideas for the peace conference…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think, ultimately, taking Ozai's bending was right and taking Azula's at this time would not be, but it's worth digging into and knowing the _why_. I also think it's a particular tragedy that huge amounts of Air Nomad culture will invariably be lost because their only survivor was a twelve-year-old boy who had yet to experience large parts of it. 
> 
> There are several different branches of Buddhism. Most of what Yangchen tells Aang here is based on conversations I had with Bhutanese Buddhist monks I used to teach English to, and is not necessarily representative of how other branches would handle the same questions of violence, defense, and compassion. The encouragement of complex discussion of these topics is one of the things I like about Buddhism, though.


	11. How To Get The Measure Of A Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It is the way one treats his inferiors more than the way he treats his equals which reveals one’s real character."
> 
> —Rev. Charles Bayard Miliken
> 
> "If you want to know what a guy's really like, watch how he treats animals, children, and serving staff."
> 
> —My mother in a well-meaning but slightly misguided attempt to advise me on choosing boyfriends (but my girlfriend tips very well!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OC time! Also with scattered mentions of abuse and sexual assault against serving staff. And also some racism because you just know that everybody currently alive in the Fire Nation has been raised on MASSES of racist propaganda about the Water Savages and Mud People or whatever. 
> 
> Zuko: -adds anti-racism initiatives and cultural exchange programs to the never-ending list-
> 
> These three moments don't take place on the same day--consider them scattered about over a week or so.

The palace is filling up again, but lopsidedly. There are generals and advisers and guests of the Fire Lord, not to mention the new Fire Lord himself and his family, but not enough hands to keep them all fed and cared for up to the standards which the royal household has maintained for generations. Many of those who were banished by Princess Azula are too afraid to return without a formal pardon, and hiring and training new staff is both costly and takes time that they don’t really have to spare.

It’s desperate enough that a few of the kitchen staff have brought in their older children to help with the more menial kitchen tasks, fetching and carrying and washing dishes and _maybe_ doing some slicing and dicing if the parent has deemed the child responsible enough to handle a knife safely. A couple of the servants who come to the kitchen to deliver orders from the palace’s occupants comment on how pretty and polite Hana is, and Mei realizes she should have paid more attention to that when she finishes slicing what feels like a whole herd of cow-pigs into beef strips and discovers that, due to the lack of trained tea servers, somebody decided to send her ten-year-old to bring tea to _the Fire Lord himself._

She’s still blistering the ears off of the servant responsible with a rant worthy of the Head Chef himself when Hana returns. Mei has to stop yelling because she suddenly can’t _breathe_ at the sight of her daughter pale, shaky, and clutching a tray of porcelain shards.

“Hana, sweetheart, let me get that,” she gasps, taking the tray and shoving it on the servant she was just yelling at. She crouches in front of Hana, heart in her throat as she looks her daughter up and down for injuries. “Are you okay?! What _happened_?!”

“I’m okay,” Hana says, giving her a shaky smile. “I tripped on a scroll and dropped the tray.”

“Oh, spirits preserve us,” Mei whimpers, gripping her daughter’s arms, looking more frantically. “He must have been _furious_—sweetie, if you’re hurt, you _have _to tell me—!”

“Mom, I’m not hurt!” Hana insists. “He wasn’t mad! Well, he _did_ yell when I was apologizing, but just to tell me not to kneel ‘cause there was broken stuff on the floor. And then _he_ asked me if I was okay, and when I said I was, he _smiled_!”

Mei blinks a few times. “He… smiled?” She wasn’t aware that Fire Lords _could_ do that. She’s heard Fire Lord Ozai was capable of smirking, but that isn’t really the same thing. The royal blood famously runs strong in firebending, in lightning, in unparalleled strategic prowess, and in beauty, but those perfect faces are not known to crack into smiles.

“He said it’s good I’m not hurt, and to be careful picking up, and to go get clean clothes,” Hana recited, making a face as she tugged at her tea-stained dress. “And to come back with more tea and something to clean up the spill, and not to run with broken stuff ‘cause that’s dangerous.”

Mei takes a deep breath, then another. Hana isn’t hurt, and the Fire Lord even told her to come back instead of chasing her out of the palace. But what if Hana’s to be punished when she returns? “Go get cleaned up,” Mei says, kissing her daughter’s forehead. “I’ll prepare the tea and get some warm water.” Hana makes a face as she tugs at her dress again, nods, and runs off.

“See? She’s _fine_,” the servant insists.

“Do us both a favour? Shut up and fuck off to deal with that,” Mei says tersely, waving a hand at the broken cups.

Mei has been kitchen staff for seventeen years, and in all that time she’s rarely left the kitchen itself except to run to the icehouse. She’s good at her job, and while she is _quite_ the catch, thank you very much, she’s never been pretty in the delicate way that gets girls chosen for direct service to the royal family. She’s never even been _near_ the royal chambers before.

Somehow, she expected more gold, but then again, there are multiple antechambers to the Fire Lord’s actual _quarters_, and this one is a relatively small room with a garden view that’s clearly for private tea and light meals. The only real furniture is a low table surrounded by sitting cushions, though almost all flat space is currently covered with scrolls of one sort or another, which the occupants of the room are in the process of tidying out of the way, one tea-stained scroll hanging over the balcony railing to dry. That scroll is probably worth more than Mei’s whole house, and everything in it combined, every_one_ in it combined, and her mouth is dry just looking at the damaged paper.

A wheeled chair is sitting behind the Fire Lord, who is seated improperly across three cushions, his legs stretched out ahead of him. He’s leaning against the side of a noble girl, one Mei’s seen before, the one who dresses and moves around the palace like a ninja from a play. Lady Ursa is seated across from them, and gives Hana and Mei a friendly smile when they walk in. Mei remembers Lady Ursa’s informal, friendly demeanour whenever she comes to the kitchen to make food, and how it drained away when they mentioned having placed bets on whether or not her son was alive. Mei feels much more guilty about that now, seeing how thin the Fire Lord is, the scars tracing all exposed skin, the awkward angle of his legs. She bows her head quickly, knowing she shouldn’t stare, and nudges Hana forwards.

“My lord,” Hana says, carefully rounding the puddle and placing the tea tray on the table before bowing properly.

“Good job,” the Fire Lord says, and wow, Hana wasn’t kidding, that’s a _smile_. It’s a little crooked, having to take the long way around some of the scars, and one eye is still locked into a pretty menacing look, but still, that’s a _smile-_smile.

“Thank you, my lord,” Hana says, blushing bright red and bowing again.

Mei sets down her bucket and cloth and bows low to the floor herself. “My lord, I apologize for my daughter’s clumsiness,” she says formally.

“It was an accident,” the Fire Lord says with a shrug. “I’m glad she didn’t scald herself. It was my fault, anyway. I shouldn’t have left those scrolls all over the floor.” He gives a sheepish smile to his mother, who gives him the same exasperated look that Mei’s sure she’s worn herself on going to check if her children have cleaned their room and finding a pile of toys and dirty laundry shoved in the cupboard. “I owe you an apology for that,” he says, turning back to Hana and inclining her head.

“I-It’s okay—umm, thank you?” Hana squeaks, giving him another flustered bow and then looking frantically at her mother, as if _she_ knows how you’re supposed to talk to a Fire Lord, let alone accept an _apology_ from one. She didn’t know they did that, either.

“You are too kind, my lord,” Mei says, bowing again and then getting to work scrubbing the floor while she’s down there.

“She’s a child. Accidents happen. It’s _fine_,” the Fire Lord says firmly. He smiles at Hana again. “Is that gingko I smell?”

“Oh! I should serve it for you, I’m sorry, my lord,” Hana says nervously, stepping towards the tea tray again, but the Fire Lord waves her off.

“It needs a couple more minutes to steep,” he says. “Don’t worry, you’re doing a great job. What’s your name?”

“Hana, my lord,” she squeaks, going red again.

“You know, I’m not sure Fire Lords are supposed to make conversation with their servants,” the noble girl points out.

“Are you kidding? This is already better conversation than I get out of any of my advisers,” the Fire Lord protests. “How old are you, Hana?”

“Ten, my lord,” Hana says, bowing again just to be on the safe side. Mei’s hands are scrubbing, but she’s watching the actual Fire Lord talk to her daughter with terror slowly bleeding away.

She remembers when she started working at the palace, under Fire Lord Azulon, before this Fire Lord was even _born_. She remembers the _very _stern lecture that she and a handful of other new servants got from a ranking housekeeper; servants were to be invisible to the royal family and the nobles, or, if their role made that impossible, they were to be as a beautiful piece of furniture, speaking only if spoken to, and then only if a formal bow was not sufficient response. The idea of _conversation_ with a royal, let alone the Fire Lord himself, was not to be thought of. She’s seen servers who got in trouble for insolence or dropping things come back with black eyes or broken wrists or burns, who limped away from the palace in disgrace and never returned…

But Hana is fine, she’s uninjured, and she’s talking to a Fire Lord who smiles.

“Already training as a royal tea server at ten?” the Fire Lord says with what sounds like genuine interest. “I didn’t know they started so young.”

“Oh, I’m just here to help my Mom ‘cause there aren’t enough servants,” Hana says, smiling shyly back.

“Hana!” Mei hisses, because _oh spirits she__’s telling the Fire Lord his household is mismanaged to his FACE oh Agni preserve us_

“Really?” the Fire Lord says with a frown. “Nobody told me we’re still understaffed…”

“The management of servants is beneath the Fire Lord’s notice,” Mei says, bowing again. “I assure you, my lord, we will not falter in our duties.”

“Oh, of course, servant management is the Fire Lady’s duty,” Lady Ursa says, clapping a hand to her forehead, “and you don’t have one yet…?” She gives the Fire Lord and the noble girl a little smile and an eyebrow that makes the Fire Lord _blush. _The noble girl gives Lady Ursa a flat look back. Mei figured that the girl was a girlfriend, maybe the young Fire Lord’s first consort, but she still didn’t expect to see blushes. This Fire Lord has quite the range of unusual skills, it seems. “I’ll take care of it. I think I did a fair enough job of keeping the household for your grandfather while I was a Princess, after all.”

“Thanks, Mom,” the Fire Lord says. Mei is starting to wonder if she got some bad fish at breakfast and is having weird dreams, because does the royal family _really_ talk to each other so… normally?

It has to be Lady Ursa’s influence. The woman walks around the palace barefooted, dressed like a beach islander, doing her own cooking and engaging in friendly conversation when she’s in the kitchen. Fire Lord Zuko must have inherited his unusual skills, like smiling and being friendly, from her.

“If I may, my lord,” Mei ventures, because they’re already well past what would be unacceptable insolence to any other Fire Lord and somehow things are _fine_, “the Princess Azula banished nearly all of the staff, and I think many of those who are staying away are afraid to return without a formal pardon…?”

“_Azula_,” the Fire Lord mutters under his breath, rubbing his forehead. “Well, at least that’s one problem with an easy fix. If I draft a formal announcement of pardon—” He reaches for a discarded brush, but the noble girlfriend intercepts, snatching the brush out of his reach.

“You just got the use of your hands back,” she says sternly. “Doctor Zho’s orders are not to overdo it, and I’m here to enforce them. You can write it in an hour.” The Fire Lord sighs, rolls his eyes, but retracts his hand.

Mei finishes cleaning the floor, and Hana steps up to pour the tea, handling the big tea pot _very_ carefully. Tea servers are usually older so they can handle the heavy pot _properly_, Mei has seen them at it, there’s a whole process of kneeling and sweeping sleeves and pouring tea from a precise height and so on, all very graceful and elegant, but nobody corrects Hana, and when she’s poured three cups, the Fire Lord _smiles_ again.

Lady Ursa takes a drink from hers first, then closes her eyes and sighs in contentment. “It’s delicious,” she says. Mei’s pretty sure she’s heard that nobody’s allowed to eat or drink before the Fire Lord, but he doesn’t seem to mind that, either, holding his cup carefully in both hands as he drinks.

“Good job, Hana,” he says. “You’ve got a good daughter,” he continues, looking to Mei. “You should be proud.”

It’s the only thing he’s said since Mei stepped into the room that sounds like an _order_.

“Thank you, my lord,” Mei says. She and Hana bow again and beat a hasty retreat, leaving them to their tea.

The guard outside the door catches the look on her face and grins. “He’s like that with all the servants,” he whispers. “Wild, isn’t it?”

“Am I in trouble, Mom?” Hana asks as they make their way back to the kitchen.

“No, sweetheart, I don’t think you are,” Mei says, a little dazed.

Hana grins. “Good! Y’know, you said serving in the palace could be kinda scary, but it’s not! I mean, he’s got a scary face, but he’s actually really nice! Do you think I could be in charge of delivering his tea again sometime? I wanna get it right next time!”

Mei takes a deep breath, then smiles. “We’ll see,” she promises.

…but if she ever finds out that somebody’s sent her daughter to deliver to Princess Azula or the Water Tribe encampment, she’s going to _mince_ them.

~F~F~F~

Naomi doesn’t exactly _like_ her job, but it’s simple enough, an endless cycle of fetching, cleaning and replacing laundry that she can do without thinking about it, and because it’s at the palace, it pays _very_ well for how straightfoward it is. Her mother died in childbed years ago, and after her father was lost in the botched Siege of the North, she’s the only one left to support her younger siblings, so “dull but well-paid” is an excellent deal to her mind.

Princess Azula banishing the _whole_ staff was a terrifying week. Naomi wasn’t clear on if she was supposed to leave the capital or not, but she had four siblings to feed so she took the risk of looking for a new job and she didn’t get arrested, so maybe she was only banished from the palace, or maybe all the guards were banished too. She couldn’t get into service in a noble household, not without references that she of course didn’t have, and city laundries simply don’t pay enough. It was with a heavy heart and an empty stomach that she’d been on her way to her thirteen-year-old brother’s school to inform them that he’d be leaving school to seek work when she heard the news that the palace gates were opening so that the people of Caldera City could watch the coronation of the new Fire Lord.

She could only faintly hear the speech, but she heard the part about undoing the mistakes of past Fire Lords loud and clear. That night, when guards came around, it was only to announce that the whole city was eating on the Fire Lord’s coin to celebrate. The noodle bar down the road set up an outside table with a huge pot and cooked until their stock ran out, and Naomi and her siblings ate their bodyweights in noodles, and the next day she went back to the palace to get her job back.

She hasn’t told Hiro she was going to pull him out of school. He’s smart, loves to read, dreams of being a scholar in the classics. Dad was always proud of how smart his oldest son was, hopeful that a place at the Royal University would allow him to be exempt from the draft when he came of age. Naomi was afraid of going back to the palace without actually being pardoned for her banishment, but she found it easier to take that risk than to ask him to give up his university dreams to be a delivery boy.

There have been changes, of course. Princess Azula is no longer to be crowned, but she is still roaming freely in the palace, and they’re warned to bow low and keep their eyes on the floor if they’re unfortunate enough to find themselves in her presence. There’s a central courtyard that’s to be avoided, because the Avatar and his warriors are using it as a campsite (and that terrifies Naomi even more than the Princess, to know that the _Avatar_ is here, the spirit-master who single-handedly sent thousands to their graves in the frozen waters of the north. Ever since getting the letter about Dad’s death, she’s had nightmares about monstrous spirits dragging him into the icy deeps, coming to drown them all—why would the Fire Lord invite somebody like that _here_, why is he _in the Palace_?!). After a few days, one of the outer gardens also becomes forbidden ground because water tribe barbarians are camping there while they negotiate peace with the Fire Lord (she’s a little more curious about them, but still afraid to go look, to see if they’re all as big and strong and hairy as bears like the stories say, because she’s afraid that they are, and that the _other_ stories are true, that when they take a Fire Nation ship they slaughter and eat the men and carry the women off to keep as wives).

There’s far fewer staff, too, because many of those who were banished _did_ leave the capital and haven’t heard the news and returned yet. The last time Naomi saw her partner Kena, the slightly younger girl was planning to make tracks for the eastern islands, and there isn’t enough staff for her to get a new partner. It’s a little creepy, hurrying in and out of the big rooms and cramped servant’s hallways all alone, her head ringing with warnings about not going off alone because the palace is always full of powerful men who are used to getting what they want, and now it’s fully of terrifying spirit-masters and rough barbarians, but there just aren’t enough servants and too much that needs doing so here she is, alone but for a basket of silken bedsheets.

There have been attempts on the new Fire Lord’s life, so guard routes have changed too, patrolling servants’ corridors that used to go ignored, and apparently there’s enough of _them_ not to have to work alone because here come two of them now, side-by-side, blocking the cramped passageway. They should move to single file to let her pass, but they don’t.

Heart hammering in her chest, Naomi hefts her basket in her arms and stops a few paces away. “Excuse me, sirs,” she says, side-stepping in case she can maybe squeeze around them.

“What’s the hurry?” one of them says, side-stepping with her. He exchanges a grin with his buddy. “What’s your name, beautiful?”

“I’m sorry, but I really have to get these to the laundry,” she says, side-stepping again in a futile effort to get past. Her heart is starting to beat faster, and _this_ is why they used a partner system—

“Hey, no need to be like that,” the second one says, putting a hand on her arm. She freezes, wants to throw it off, but what if that makes them angry? There’s two of them and only one of her, and they’re both big and armed and all she has is bedsheets and she’s _alone_—

“I didn’t realize that there was anything so valuable down a servant’s corridor as to need a guard.”

The guards turn to the raspy voice, go dead white, and snap to attention because oh spirits, is that the fucking Fire Lord?

Naomi’s never actually seen him before, she was too far away to make anything out at the coronation, but she’s heard the other servants talk about his scars, his chair with wheels, his terrifying dragon’s eyes. Before Naomi bows her head to avert her gaze, she wonders why nobody mentioned that, even with the scars—arguably enhanced by them, for a girl with taste—he’s _really_ pretty.

“Fire Lord!” one of the guards says, making the Flame with his hands. “There, uh, isn’t…?”

“You aren’t on guard? How odd,” the Fire Lord says, with an awful lot of ice in his voice for a firebender. “That would mean that you’re on patrol, but a patrol involves _movement_, not standing around in back corridors. Isn’t that right?”

“Of course, my lord,” the guard says. “Sincerest apologies, my lord.” They both bow again and head off at a quick march.

Naomi backs up against the wall, keeping her head bowed, waiting for them to pass. She sees the wheels of the Fire Lord’s chair stop as he draws level with her.

“If there are any other guards… loitering… back here, please inform Guard Captain Ming immediately,” the Fire Lord says, voice warming up significantly. “We have more than enough people who know how to use a spear around here and not enough who know how to use a laundry tub. We can’t have them harassing staff, and Captain Ming is _very _particular about her patrol schedule being kept.”

“Yes, my lord,” Naomi says, contriving to bow her head deeper. She catches sight of a black boot and the hem of a black dress, and something cold and solid is slipped into the edge of the basket, just next to her thumb.

“Men who can’t keep their hands to themselves,” a girl’s voice says coolly, “don’t get to keep their hands.”

“Words to live by,” the Fire Lord chuckles. “Also, please inform the other servants I might have to pass through here from time to time, but you don’t have to disrupt your duties or stop using this corridor. It’s the only route to the archives that doesn’t have any stairs, that’s all.”

“Yes, my lord,” Naomi repeats. The Fire Lord is wheeled away, and Naomi stays stock-still until the sound of wheels is completely gone.

_Nobody is going to believe that I ran into the _Fire Lord_ in a servant__’s corridor, _she thinks, setting down her load for a brief moment so she can examine what the girl in black gave her. It’s a hairpin, nice but not too flashy. It has the sturdiest, _sharpest_ needle she’s ever seen. It looks strong enough to pierce right through a hand.

Naomi tucks it into her hair bun _very_ carefully, picks up her basket again, and starts heading for the laundry. She’s running a little late, and she’s not sure that the other girls are going to believe the reason why, but there’s not much she can do about that. Running into the Fire Lord in a back corridor is supposed to be one of those things that even going about in pairs won’t protect you from, not… whatever that was. Then again, this Fire Lord apparently has a lady bodyguard and has appointed a woman as the new Guard Captain, a woman he seems sure will actually _care_ if her guards are harassing mere housemaids.

…Well, the job sure isn’t _dull_ anymore, she’ll give it that.

~F~F~F~

Guan has been a royal gardener for decades. He’s been tending some of the trees and bushes in the gardens for longer than his kids have been alive. He’s missed his floral friends, and it hurts, on his return, to see the disarray some of them have fallen into, to find out which ones have been burned and have to make the call on whether they can be saved or if they have to be uprooted and replaced.

He doesn’t have as many assistants as he used to, but he does what he can with the handful that have come back, setting them to the basic daily maintenance tasks of clipping and sweeping while Guan himself and his eldest son Yan set to the large-scale repairs and restructures of each individual garden.

A pond that used to be home to a thriving family of turtle-ducks is now empty, its once elegant shape marred by gouges of cooked mud, almost like somebody was firing fireballs at the pond.

“We’d better expand the pond instead of trying to fill them in, don’t want the grass growing uneven,” he tells Yan as he circles the pond. “Fetch me the hoe, so I can mark out the new edges.”

“Sure thing, Dad,” Yan says, turning in the direction of where they left the tools. He freezes abruptly, then bows low.

Guan follows his gaze to see Fire Lord Zuko being wheeled through the garden by General Iroh. He presses his hands into the Flame, bows low, and waits for them to pass.

“Good afternoon,” General Iroh says pleasantly.

“Hang on, Uncle,” the Fire Lord says as they draw level with the pond. “You’re repairing the turtle-duck pond, aren’t you?”

“Yes, my lord,” Guan says, straightening up. He has tended these gardens for many years, and often in those years has had to wait discreetly out of sight while a member of the royal family is enjoying the garden, not permitted to work until they leave. He remembers often seeing the young Prince Zuko here, with his mother, feeding and playing with the turtle-ducks, but when Princess Ursa disappeared, the prince stopped coming. There’s little of the smiling child he remembers to be seen in the scarred, gaunt face of Fire Lord Zuko. What if he wants such frivolous things as a turtle-duck pond gone?

“While you’re restoring the pond, you should add somewhere they can nest,” the Fire Lord says. “Some kind of shelter, or something. I guess the pond’s too open, because I remember they’d always wander off to try and find a secluded corner somewhere to build a nest, and then people would keep throwing their nests and eggs away… it’d be safer for the turtle-ducks if they could have something by the pond, I think.”

“A little hillock, perhaps, with a hollow hidden by reeds?” General Iroh muses. “I am sure an artisan such as yourself could devise something that will not unbalance the aesthetics of the garden, master gardener!”

“Of course,” Guan says, bowing again, relief unfurling in his chest along with pride at the recognition of his work. “We will set at once to carrying out the Fire Lord’s will.”

“Thank you,” the Fire Lord says, with a smile that hearkens back to the kind-hearted little prince that Guan remembers. “Please have word sent to me once the turtle-ducks have returned to the palace. I’ve missed them.”

“Hark! The turtle-ducks, they have returned once again, to the royal house,” General Iroh declares in a heightened register. “Perhaps it will be a good omen for your reign, Fire Lord Zuko!”

“Enough poetry and omens, Uncle,” the Fire Lord groans. “Let’s just go meet the education minister already. Thank you for your hard work,” he says, nodding to Guan before his uncle pushes him away, protesting the merits of poetry.

Guan doesn’t really believe in omens, mainly because most of the people he hears talking about them are the same people who like to sit in the gardens during the spring blossoms or autumn leaves and wax poetic about the beauty of nature, unaware that nature comes second to Guan and his teams working their assess off to make the gardens as beautiful as they are. If turtle-ducks return to the palace, it won’t be because the spirits have smiled on them, it’ll be because Guan’s put in the work to get them, and because the Fire Lord cares enough to ask after them at all.

Beauty and goodness are not blessings handed down from nature or the spirits, they are things that must be worked for. But if this Fire Lord actually understands that, then, Guan believes, with hard work and patience and care, beauty is what they will have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Men who can't keep their hands to themselves don't get to keep their hands" is something I once heard an older lady say on a bus, very threateningly, to a man who was kinda creeping on a girl and wouldn't take his hand off her shoulder. She then offered the girl her seat, stood in front of her to block anybody getting near her, and talked about how when she was a girl they used to give a pocket knife to girls who joined the brownies or girl guides, which came in handy for camping and wilderness survival but had other uses. That lady is my hero.


	12. How To Bring Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aang proposes a peace conference. Sokka has some thoughts of his own about bringing balance to the world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw a popular ATLA meme and decided to take it really seriously and emotionally but, like, in a good way this time

Sokka leans over Appa’s saddle as they fly over the Outer Wall, wanting to see Ba Sing Se again. The last time they flew over was right after the battle, and he was mostly keeping an eye on the bound and gagged Ozai, but he remembers catching a glimpse of towering piles of ruined tanks, of the dark bodies of downed soldiers littering the otherwise pale streets.

The farms are pretty quiet, except around the gaps in the outer wall, where he can see a flurry of Earthbenders at work, passing up boulders like ants passing crumbs. Once they get further in to the city itself, the streets are bustling again. The first time they came to Ba Sing Se, all the hustle and bustle and _people_ was a little stressful, honestly, though nowhere near as much as the creepy Joo Dee and Dai Li shit. Now, though, after the tense quiet of the Fire Nation Capital, where people are still hiding and avoiding each other, it’s kind of nice to see people just… back to living their lives. Back to normal.

The first time they flew into Ba Sing Se, they thought they had information that could win the war. The last time they flew into Ba Sing Se, they thought they _had_ won the war. Now, Sokka has no idea _where_ they’re at, whether the war’s really over or not or how to end it if it isn’t.

Back home, at the South Pole, conflicts between Tribes might escalate to a scrap between the warriors of the tribes involved, but once that’s died down, it’s usually the elders who hash things out afterwards. So it makes him feel better that they’re coming to Ba Sing Se not just to talk to Earth King Kuei but to the White Lotus, who are _all_ elders, ones who already know about how to make friends and work together across national lines.

Somebody must’ve spotted Appa coming, because _loads_ of people are out in the plaza in front of the royal palace to greet them. There are orderly blocks of Earth Kingdom soldiers, and a big blue-and-white block of White Lotus, and outside of the palace walls a huge crowd is gathering, regular people cheering and waving up at Appa but unable to actually come into the palace proper. Weirdly, he remembers Zuko’s coronation, how he _did_ have the palace gates opened to let the regular people of the Fire Nation in, to let them actually _see_ their new Fire Lord. Down below, he can see Bosco sitting next to an elaborate palanquin, which is how he can tell that they found Kuei, but nobody can see the Earth King himself.

“Hi, everybody!” Aang chirps brightly, hopping off of Appa’s head before the sky bison has even fully landed.

“Welcome back, Avatar Aang!” Earth King Kuei calls, his voice brimming with delight, Bosco roaring happily at his side. “The White Lotus has been telling me all about your defeat of Fire Lord Ozai! Simply marvelous! And Sokka—you must tell me more about your great battle with the Fire Nation fleet!”

“Glad to see you made it back to Ba Sing Se too, your earthiness,” Aang says, giggling as he hugs Bosco. “How were your travels?”

“Amazing!” Kuei sings. “Rather dirty, admittedly, but oh—the Earth Kingdom is so beautiful! And my people—they’re wonderful, simply wonderful! I am so honoured to be their king!”

“Sokka,” Piandao says, stepping up. Sokka bows respectfully—Piandao was only his teacher for a few days, but his sword training saved Sokka’s life and the lives of the people he cares about a hundred times over. He remembers, with a pang of regret, the space sword that Piandao taught him to forge tumbling away into the forests of the western Earth Kingdom, but better the sword than Toph. He can make another. Maybe Master Piandao still has some of the space metal left, even.

“Master Piandao,” he says. “How’s Ba Sing Se?”

“Secure, for now,” Piandao says with a frown. “We’ve been getting some… odd letters from Iroh…”

“Oh, yeah! Zuko’s alive!” Aang says happily. “He’s pretty badly hurt, but it turns out Ozai didn’t kill him! Isn’t that great?”

“It’s true? Prince Zuko is alive?” Piandao says, looking intently at Sokka.

“Yeah, but… looks like Ozai was torturing him,” Sokka says quietly, which elicits disgusted expressions from everyone in earshot and a shocked gasp from Kuei. “But yeah, he’s alive. And Iroh kinda insisted on crowning him Fire Lord, so, uh, if you get any mail from Fire Lord Zuko? That’s legit.”

“Oh, my…” Kuei’s hand protrudes from one of the curtains, gesturing to the servants who pick up the palanquin. “It sounds like rather a lot has been happening in the Fire Nation. Please, you must join us for dinner and tell us all about it.”

“You had me at food, your majesty,” Sokka says with a grin. Pakku is frowning at him, but that’s the old man’s default expression. Sokka doesn’t see that changing any time soon.

~X~X~X~

Once Sokka and Aang are done explaining, there’s a long, long silence.

Surprisingly, Kuei is the first to break it. “Well… this does change things somewhat, doesn’t it?” he says, scratching Bosco’s head. Not many of them have touched their food, and Kuei isn’t the only one who looks too sick to eat now.

“Not necessarily, Your Majesty,” Piandao says thoughtfully. “True, we were making plans based on the notion of dealing with Fire Lord Iroh, but I knew Prince Zuko as a boy. He had a good heart when he was young, and if it’s endured all that Ozai has done to him…”

“Wait, you knew him?” Sokka blurts out in surprise.

“I was hired in my capacity as a sword master to train him,” Piandao says with a fond smile. “He took to the blade extremely well. I have never had a more gifted student… though you certainly got further in a week, in your unorthodox style, than many do in a year,” he adds with a chuckle and a wink to Sokka. The smile fades a moment later, however. “After the death of Fire Lord Azulon, I was let go. Ozai considered all forms of weaponry to be inferior to firebending…” He snorts in derision.

“Perhaps he will take more of an interest now,” Pakku says dryly. Sokka chuckles, but nobody else manages more than a brief smirk before returning to solemnity. “Iroh’s… disinterest in making any sort of prisoner exchange for Ozai was clear. Hard to believe, if what you have described is true, that Fire Lord Zuko is any more interested.”

“Which makes Ozai a completely worthless prisoner,” General How says. Some of the Council of Five look grimly pleased with this prospect, and all it implies for Ozai’s life expectancy. Sokka doesn’t pity the guy one bit.

“Zuko didn’t say if he wants to trade for Ozai or not,” Aang says with a shrug. “He asked me to deliver his request for a peace conference because he was worried you wouldn’t accept letters from the Fire Lord…” He pulls a letter out of his new robes and offers it to Kuei. “But maybe you’ll accept it from me?” he says hopefully.

“Of course, Avatar Aang,” Kuei says respectfully as he takes the letter and unsnaps the seal, unrolling it to read. “A peace conference with the Fire Nation,” he muses, passing the letter to General How. “Who could have imagined? A month, he says?”

“A peace treaty between equals?” General How reads aloud with a frown. “The Fire Nation lost the war! This should be a declaration of surrender!”

“Does it matter?” Aang says, frowning. Sokka winces, because he thinks it really doesn’t, but he thinks he can guess why the generals think it does.

“Of course it matters!” General Sung yelps. “The Fire Nation may have quit Ba Sing Se, but they can’t possibly expect to continue to hold the rest of the Earth Kingdom! They should surrender all of their ill-gotten—”

“I think they’re gonna,” Sokka interrupts. He pulls out the map he got from Zuko before leaving. “Right now, I think they’re retreating to… he called these Azulon’s fronts?” He pushes some dishes aside so he can spread the map out over the table and point to a series of red lines across the Earth Kingdom. “Just temporarily. He wants to negotiate the rest at the—”

“What is there to negotiate?” General How demands. “The Fire Nation lost, and they _will_ be leaving the Earth Kingdom!”

“General How, I am sure that this is General Iroh and Fire Lord Zuko’s intention,” Jeong Jeong says calmly. “However, you know as well as any of us how difficult such large-scale troop movements are. Safe routes must be agreed upon with the Earth Kingdom to prevent fatal misunderstandings…”

“Speaking of—hey, Jeong Jeong, you wanna come back to the Fire Nation and be a general again?” Sokka interrupts, waving at the wild-haired old general. “There’s been a bunch of arguments, and some kinda duel, and, uh, assassins, so I think Zuko could do with some new generals who don’t want him dead? Hey, you could probably be a general too, Master!” he adds excitedly to Piandao.

“I have never been a commander,” Piandao says, shaking his head. “I don’t have the mind for the logistics of the position, but thank you, Sokka. It’s unsurprising that there’s internal strife over ending the war in the Fire Nation military, and that’s just going to make things more complicated…”

“What’s important is that Zuko’s pulling troops back,” Aang says firmly. “So please don’t attack the Fire Nation army until the peace conference, okay?”

“We will not start any conflicts, Avatar Aang,” Kuei says, raising a hand, “but I will not order my troops not to defend themselves if attacked.”

“I think Zuko’s given the same order, Your Majesty,” Aang says quietly. He draws himself up, putting on his Serene Avatar Face that makes him look _way_ older. “Fire Lord Zuko asked me to arrange the peace conference, and oversee it, as the Avatar. He doesn’t just want to speak to you, Earth King Kuei, but to all the kings of the Earth Kingdom… the place is pretty big,” he says, with a sheepish grin at Bumi.

“Hah! Got more respect than his predecessors, I’ll give ‘im that,” Bumi laughs, before looking at Kuei. “Seems like a good chance for you to meet the people who’ve actually been ruling the Earth Kingdom, eh, boy?” Some of the generals look close to apoplexy over Bumi addressing Kuei as “boy”, but others just get tired expressions, like they’ve given up, and some of the White Lotus members are hiding smiles. All of them except Piandao are white-haired, but Sokka’s heard Bumi address more than a few of them as “boy”, too. Then again, everybody probably looks like a kid from a hundred and thirteen.

“He’s already released my dad and a few other Southern tribesmen, and I think he’s hoping to find and release them all before the peace conference,” Sokka adds. “So we’re going to be there too, and Aang and I are gonna fly to the North Pole next to invite Chief Arnook—Master Pakku, will you come with us to help explain?”

“Of course,” Pakku says with a nod. “Is that the plan, Avatar Aang? The Fire Nation, the Earth Kings, and the Water Tribes?”

“Including the Foggy Swamp Tribe,” Aang adds. “And I…” He takes a deep breath. “I’m there to oversee as the Avatar, but I… I have to speak for my people, too. As the Air Nation.”

There’s another long silence. “Looking for reparations?” Bumi says carefully. “Didn’t know the Air Nomads believed in such things.”

“We didn’t… we _don__’t,_” Aang says firmly. “But I’m… thinking about ways to preserve what I can, about our history, our culture… there’s things I’d like to ask for help with. From _all_ the other nations, not just the Fire Nation.”

“Though they definitely _owe_ you some help,” Sokka puts in. Aang’s been sounding him out on some ideas on their way over from the Fire Nation—restoring the temples, teaching Air Nomad philosophies of peace to anybody who wants to live there, like Teo’s people. Sokka figures there’ll be more than a few refugees who’ll be more than ready for a little peace, even if it comes at the price of vegetarianism, but he’s been brewing a few ideas of his own. “Look, I think Zuko’s expecting some big demands from you guys in terms of reparations and land and stuff. You’ve got a month to write all that up in official terms, and then we’ll all get around a table out here…” He points to a spot on the map, near Hei Bai’s forest, as close as they could find to exactly between all of the nations. “And we can argue terms all we like then. Sound good?”

“If Avatar Aang will be arranging and overseeing matters, then I trust that we are in good hands,” Kuei says, beaming, though the Council of Five look less sure.

“Will the Dragon of the West be attending?” General Bu asks, scowling.

“General Iroh helped _liberate_ this city,” Jeong Jeong points out, scowling right back, his wild hair and battle scars really enhancing the effect. “This persistent hatred of him is quite unnecessary!”

“Actually, I think that kind of thing is one of the reasons he said it was a better idea to crown Zuko than him,” Sokka puts in, looking to Aang, who nods.

“Sifu Iroh wants peace more than anything,” Aang says, though Sokka thinks he can think of a few things Iroh might want more, like for Zuko to be able to walk again, or maybe Ozai’s head on a stick. “I think he’ll be willing to stay away if it’ll cause too much trouble for him to be there. I can talk to him.”

“Please do,” General How says, handing Zuko’s letter back to Kuei. “Your Majesty, we should draft a reply…”

“Of course—you’ll take it back personally, won’t you, Avatar Aang?” Kuei asks, signally for a servant, who hurries over with an ink block and some brushes. “I apologize for treating the Avatar like a mail courier, but this is so very important, and I’m not sure it would be safe for a messenger—”

“It’s no problem, Your Majesty,” Aang says with a smile. “I’m the Avatar. I’m here to help.”

~X~X~X~

Aang wants to head off to the North Pole right away, but Sokka talks him into accepting a night’s stay at the palace to give Earth King Kuei and the Council of Five more time to draft a reply to Zuko. There doesn’t seem to be a new Grand Secretariat yet.

They turn down staying in separate rooms—it’s weird enough sleeping away from Appa, even knowing that the sky bison is enjoying a mountain of vegetables down on the plaza, and that there’s no Dai Li to hurt him again. Aang would probably vibrate out of his skin if Sokka wasn’t here, pressing food on him in lieu of the fancy dinner that they really didn’t eat and wondering aloud if Pakku’s going to get airsick on the flight north.

Conversation trails off as they finish their food, and Aang’s starting to wonder about getting an early sleep when Sokka speaks up. “Hey, Aang,” he says slowly, staring distantly into his empty rice bowl, “y’know how you took Ozai’s firebending? Could you give it to somebody?”

Aang blinks. “…What?”

“Y’know…” Sokka plucks a date off of Aang’s plate and snatches it away. “You took Ozai’s bending away, so could you just…” He offers the date back, as if presenting a gift.

“Bending isn’t a _thing_ I can _take away_ like that,” Aang protests. “It’s not like I pulled anything out of Ozai, it’s more like… like I blocked off the channels of his energy.”

“Energy channels?” Sokka asks, genuinely curious.

Aang dips his finger in some sauce, trying to figure out how to explain what he felt, what he _knew_, first when the Lion-Turtle touched him, and then when he reached out to Ozai. He draws the outline of a person on a plate. “Everybody has channels of energy in their body,” he explains, drawing some disconnected lines inside of the outline. “And we’re all connected, just a little, to all of the elements. A bender is fully connected to the channels for their element and can push their energy through them and into the air, or earth, or water, or fire.” He draws a circle in the head of the figure, connects it to one of the energy lines he drew, and then extends it outwards, drawing the symbol of fire. “When I bent Ozai’s energy, I changed those channels, so he can’t put his energy through them anymore.” He rubs out the connection between the circle and the energy line, then licks his fingers clean.

“But… he still _has_ those firebending energy channels?” Sokka asks nervously.

“Everybody does,” Aang assures him, “but he can’t use them any more than you could, Sokka.”

Sokka stares for a minute at the drawing, getting that pensive look he sometimes does when an idea is hitting. “So… you _could_ give somebody firebending who didn’t have it before? If you can bend that energy, could you bend it to…” He dips his finger into the same sauce puddle, re-drawing the line connecting the energy to the little circle.

“I…” Aang stares at it for a long moment. He remembers what the Lion-Turtle told him, that all bending is a form of energybending, that it is all connected, all inside of every living thing. “I… guess? I was just thinking about how to stop Ozai. I never thought about using it _that_ way…”

“But if you could,” Sokka says slowly, carefully, giving Aang an intent look, “does that mean that you could give somebody airbending?”

Aang’s breath catches in his chest. It feels like _everything__’s_ ground to a halt, even the air around him.

_Give somebody airbending. _Make_ another airbender._

Everybody has the energy channels for air. _Everybody_. All living things are connected to air, need it to _live_, even fish deep under the sea who breathe the air in water. If he could open those channels…

_I could teach them all about our culture_, he thinks dizzily. _I could teach them to bake fruit cakes, and to play airball, and they could help me restore the temples, and I wouldn__’t have to be _alone—

“Hey, Aang!” Sokka says, putting his hands on Aang’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I…” Aang clutches at Sokka’s wrists. “Sokka, I… I think I could do it, I think I _could_, I…”

“Deep breaths, buddy,” Sokka says, squeezing Aang’s shoulders. “In, out, c’mon, aren’t you an airbender?” Aang takes a deep enough breath to ruffle Sokka’s hair with the wind, and the older boy grins. “Attaboy. You got this. In, out, even I know that much airbending, you can do it!”

Aang takes a few slow, deep breaths, but his head is still spinning. “Sokka… We have to go to the Northern Air Temple,” he says urgently. “Teo’s gliders—they already have the _spirits_ of Air Nomads, I could give them—!” He tries to stand up.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sokka says, pushing him to sit back down. “It’s just a theory right now. If you wanna try giving somebody airbending, I don’t think you should try it on some excited kids on top of a mountain.”

“Oh… uh, yeah.” Aang rubs his head, brimming with nervous energy. “Top of a mountain. Bad place to airbend the first time. When we were little, the nuns always took us down to the plains around the Eastern Temple…” He can see it so vividly that his vision swims as tears pour down his cheeks; running in the fields of waving grass with the other children, watching in delight as the grass flurried around them, showing them the patterns of the air they were bending for the very first time. _I might be able to see it again, if children are born there, _airbending_ children__—_

“D’you think…” Sokka takes his hands back, scratching his own head. “D’you think… you could try it out on me? Give _me_ airbending?”

Aang’s jaw drops. “Sokka…?”

“Not to keep,” Sokka says quickly. “I don’t think I’d cut it as a monk, not if I had to give up meat. But we already know you can take bending away, so if it does work, we can show everybody what you can do, and then you can take it away again later!”

“I…” Aang wipes his eyes, staring, but Sokka doesn’t look like he’s joking. He’s got that serious look on, like during the invasion, like he’s set his mind to something that he’s decided is important and that means he’s going to do it, even if it’s dangerous. “Sokka… what if I get it wrong? What if I—if I hurt you…”

“Aang, you’re my friend. I trust you. You’re not going to hurt me,” Sokka says confidently. He pats his hands on his knees and gives Aang a bright grin. “C’mon, let’s try it!”

“N-now?!” Aang yelps. “Sokka, I really think—Katara should be here, just in case—”

“Aang, if something does go wrong, I don’t think water healing’s gonna cover it,” Sokka says calmly, “but nothing’s gonna go wrong, because you’re my friend, and you care about me, and you never want to hurt _anybody_. And I don’t think Katara worrying up a storm in the background is gonna help, anyway. C’mon, how does it work?”

Aang raises his hands hesitantly. It doesn’t feel _right_, reaching out to Sokka’s head and heart, the way he reached for Ozai, to Azula…

_But he_ _’s my friend, and I’m not going to hurt him. _

“To… to do this, I had to… overcome Ozai’s spirit with my own,” he explains nervously. “He… he fought me. He _really_ fought me…” He shivers at the memory of Ozai’s rancid, hateful energy crawling under his skin, burning into his spirit. “But if you… if you don’t fight, if you let me in… it-it should be easy.”

“Cool. I can do that. I trust you, Aang,” Sokka repeats, closing his eyes.

Aang breathes deeply, focusing on stilling his shaking hands. _He trusts me_, he chants in his mind. _He trusts me, and _I_ have to trust me. I know what I__’m doing. I know what the lion-turtle taught me. I’m not going to hurt him. I’m going to give him something _wonderful_._

He places one hand on Sokka’s forehead, the other on his heart, closes his eyes, and _bends_—

_Ozai_ _’s energy had crackled like steady lightning. He’d been cold inside, so cold it burned, and so separated from the energies of the world around him. His detachment had been like a warped mirror of a monk, both so detached from the world, yet where a monk should feel compassion, Ozai had only contempt. He hadn’t even seen Aang as a person while beating him to death._

_Sokka_ _’s energy is warmer, more lively—is it because he’s younger, or because he’s happier? There’s a moment of unthinking resistance as Aang’s energy flows in, and then there’s a feeling of calm, love, absolute trust, and there he is, Sokka’s brilliant spirit mapped out in sparkling energies._

_Aang finds the energies of air easily. Sokka connects to them every time he breathes, and a little more, just a little, every time he lets Boomerang fly. He _knows_ air, even if he doesn__’t know that he does, and all Aang has to do is show him—_

Sokka gasps as they open their eyes, as the brilliant light dies and the physical world returns. He scrambles back a little, then leans back on his hands, staring wide-eyed at Aang.

“S-Sokka?” Aang pants. He feels lightheaded, but not weak like he did after bending Ozai, maybe because he didn’t have to fight Sokka. He still feels that sense of absolute trust thrumming in his chest. Sokka’s one of his best friends, and he knew before that Sokka has faith it him, but now he _knows_ it the way he knows his own heartbeat. “Do you feel okay?”

“I… I just… _whoa_,” Sokka breathes, and Aang _feels_ it, the way the air tickles over his head as Sokka exhales, a living wind connected to his friend. “You… no _wonder_ you’re bouncing all of the place all the time!”

Aang giggles. “Stand up! I’ll show you the first form!” he says, using airbending unthinkingly to bounce to his feet. Sokka wobbles a little as he stands, breath still shaky and eyes still wild as he looks around, as if he’s seeing the currents and shape of the air around them for the first time. Maybe he is. Aang can’t imagine how _still_ the world must seem without them.

“Okay,” Sokka says, mimicking Aang as he places his feet, one foot facing forwards, the other back and facing away to the side. Aang bends the front leg and straightens the back leg, and Sokka watches and adjusts accordingly. “Don’t lean too heavily on your front leg,” Aang advises him. “Your stance needs to be strong, but loose.”

“No earthbending stances, got it,” Sokka says. Aang giggles, and Sokka grins. “What do I do with my arms?”

“Nothing, yet—hold them close to you, like this,” Aang says, showing how he tucks his arms into his torso. “This is the first one I ever remember learning. It’s all about footwork. See, you rotate your foot like this, then step…” He demonstrates turning his front foot, then sweeping his back foot around until it’s his front foot, and now he’s facing a different direction than before. He airbends as he sweeps his foot, making the rich tapestries hanging on the wall ripple.

“Like this?” Sokka does his best to imitate it, but his movements are a little wobbly, not as practised in the smooth, circular movements that come naturally to airbenders. Nevertheless, there’s a soft wind as he brings his foot around, ruffling the tassels at the bottom of the tapestries. “Whoa!” he yelps, jumping a little and staring from the tapestries to his foot. “Did _I_ do that?!”

“You did!” Aang says excitedly. “C’mon, watch your stance, keep stepping, and as you sweep your foot…” The two of them circle the room, Sokka’s steps steadily becoming smoother, easier, and the airbending from his sweeping foot growing stronger. “You’re getting it!”

“So if I…” Sokka loosens his arms from where he’s been holding them tight to his torso and sweeps them around, and he bends a blast of wind that knocks him over backwards. “GAH!”

“Sokka!” Aang runs to help him, but he can’t help laughing too. He clutches his stomach, crouching next to Sokka as laughter completely overtakes him, until all he can do is shake and gasp helplessly.

“Hey, I gotcha, buddy,” Sokka says, putting an arm around Aang, which is when Aang realizes that tears are pouring down his cheeks, and he’s not sure if he’s laughing or crying. “Y’know what? I think you’re gonna be a great teacher to the new airbenders, but we’re _definitely_ gonna have to get them, like, extra-thick pants or something, if this much falling down is gonna be involved…”

_New airbenders. New _airbenders! “S-Sokka… I did it, didn’t I?” Aang gasps, hugging his friend back. “I did it… I can give people airbending, I can _do_ it, I can bring us _back_…”

“You can do it,” Sokka confirms, squeezing Aang tight. It flickers through his mind that he’s never had a big brother, except in that all monks are brothers, but there’s definitely something in Katara and Sokka’s relationship that he never had with any of the monks back in the temples, and that Katara’s so, so lucky that she has this, this _big brother_. “Maybe that’s the real reason the Lion-Turtle gave you energybending, y’know? Not just to kick Ozai’s ass, but to save your people. Bring back balance and all that junk…”

Aang hugs Sokka tight, crying harder than he thinks he’s cried since he lost Appa, maybe harder than he’s _ever_ cried, and this time he’s not angry or grieving, he’s overwhelmed by how _happy_ he is.

He can’t bring back the people who were killed. He didn’t save them, and that will always be his to carry. But the Air Nomad way is to accept burdens, learn from them, and move forwards without dwelling on the past, so that’s what he has to do. He can move forwards and rebuild a new Air Nation. He _can_ bring balance to the world, and he doesn’t have to do it alone.

He won’t be the last airbender for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you are somehow aware, [this](https://sizeabletoblerone.tumblr.com/post/614177424514629632/) is the meme that inspired this week's chapter, along with how much I enjoy taking a type of bending that's only ever used one way in the show and finding more benign applications. ATLA did hint at there being some philosophical links between different bending forms--I think Guru Pathik flat out said some stuff about it all being one--that I feel was somewhat undermined by the lion-turtle backstory in LOK. Like, I get where they were coming from, but I always liked better the interpretation that the lion-turtle didn't give something to Aang, simply revealed wisdom that the lion-turtle had due to being old as balls and wanted to share with this good-hearted wee lad. And I think using energybending in this way would've made somewhat more sense than "uhhhh Harmonic Resonance did it?" much as I otherwise enjoyed the plotline about gathering and training new airbenders in LOK. So who better, in-story, to look at bending from a new angle and come up with a great idea than Sokka?
> 
> Also I don't mean to dunk on Kuei but also the guy is spoiled and naive as fuck and I don't think a few months wandering around the Earth Kingdom is gonna fully fix that. Having Bumi hanging around is probably gonna be a learning experience and a half, though...


	13. How To Treat Others With Respect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After an incident in the bath, Suki has some things to say to Fire Lord Zuko.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? An update? Perish the thought! What can I say, I got shit done during Nano, and I finally got this chapter bashed into something I'm reasonably happy with. 
> 
> Warnings that this chapter contains some quite nasty transphobia, including institutionalized transphobia, mentions of pathologizing transness, and Azula being her usual charming self. There's also quite a bit of binarist language and nobody involved has a modern-western concept of gender. I've tried to keep the framing focused on the transphobia being wrong and another one of Sozin's darling legacies that really needs fixed, but if I've fucked that up, do let me know.

As a rule, Suki does not cry in enemy territory. She _doesn__’t_. But sitting in a warm bath with her whole squad around her, finally reunited and beginning to heal from their injuries, she’s feeling very, very close to it.

She doesn’t like seeing their injuries, how thin some have gotten from the poor food in Fire Nation prisons. But they’re smiling together, there’s a little bravado going around as they compare their scars and talk about the conditions they endured. Suki doesn’t really want to talk about the Boiling Rock, least of all admit the friends that she made while she was there, but boasting about what they put up with seems to be making her squad feel better, more like heroic warriors than victims, so she’s not going to stop them. She’s just going to lie back in the hot water, watch her squad banter, and focus on not crying.

“Ugh. Ty Lee, tell the servants we need a _clean_ bath. I refuse to share the same water as _peasants_.”

_That _voice shakes Suki awake like a cold shower of rain and it drags her to her feet, grabbing for the knife she left by the poolside, a gift from Sokka who somehow just _knew_ that she’d feel better with a weapon to hand after so long without any. It doesn’t matter to her that she doesn’t have her armour, or indeed any clothes. She will _not_ let Azula hurt her squad again.

The girl in question isn’t in her vicious black-and-gold armour, just a towel, but she isn’t any less threatening as she glowers down at them in the bath. Her squad stands, too, and as Azula’s eyes roam over them, her cold glare turns to one of disgust. “Ugh, you savages bathe with _boys_?” she snorts. “Perverts.”

The squad immediately moves to cover Miki, who makes a choked sound of hurt as she moves her hands to cover herself. “She isn’t a boy,” Suki says sharply. “She’s a Kyoshi Warrior, and a transcendant woman, like Avatar Kyoshi. Show some respect.”

“I don’t see why I should show respect to savages and perverts,” Azula spits.

“C’mon, Azula, they do things differently in the Earth Kingdom,” Ty Lee says, tugging on the princess’ arm fearlessly. “Why don’t we come back later, when the servants have had time to draw us some more bath water?”

“I am a member of the royal family, and they are bathing in _my_ palace,” Azula snaps. “_They_ ought to leave.”

“You’re not _our_ royalty,” Michiko snarls. She doesn’t have her war fans, just her bare hands, her ragged nails curled into sharp claws. “You don’t get to order us around!”

Suki doesn’t want to back down from Azula, but she won’t see her squad hurt by the princess again. Knowing how to deflect and redirect the opponent’s strength in a fight is the core of a Kyoshi Warrior’s skill, but even more important, to their commander, is deflecting a fight that need not happen. “I came here to get clean, and every second we’re talking to _her_ I just feel dirtier,” she says with all the scorn she can muster. She steps out of the bath, reaching for a towel, keeping her eyes on Azula the whole time. The other girl appears to be inspecting her nails, as if she doesn’t even need to watch the enemies who so outnumber her, but she smirks a little. It rankles to let her think she’s won, but Suki boxes that feeling away. There’s nothing to _gain_ by getting into a fight over _bathwater_. That kind of prideful posturing is for old men, not women aiming to follow in Kyoshi’s confident footsteps.

Her squad follows suit, though they don’t look happy about it. Naturally, Azula can’t resist being horrible one last time as they pull up their towels and walk away. “Why _is_ he pulling the towel up over his chest, anyway?” she calls. “Though I suppose he’s no more flat-chested than the rest of you mannish little warriors…”

“Do _not_ let her bait you,” Suki says sharply, taking the rearguard both because it makes her feel better to keep herself between her squad and the princess, and to shepherd them out of the room quicker. “Words are all she has now that she’s the guard dog of the Fire Lord.”

…Okay, so she can’t _completely_ resist being a little petty. It feels good to hear Azula hiss in frustration, even though it’s the hiss of a rattle-goose about to strike. Ty Lee gets in the way, though, blocking the line of sight between Suki and Azula and chattering brightly to Azula about how nice it’ll be to have the bath all to themselves. Suki isn’t sure if the girl’s trying to protect Azula, Suki, or just keep all parties from fighting out of a pathological need for calm and peace, but she’s grateful for the girl, anyway.

The war’s supposed to be over. She doesn’t want to get into any more fights. She wants to take her girls _home_.

From the looks on her squads’ faces, though, they feel like they lost, and that doesn’t feel good. Miki looks particularly sad and vulnerable. After months in a men’s prison, maybe such comments should be nothing, but it probably hurts even more to be attacked again after finally being reunited with her squad and feeling _safe_ again.

Kimi is the first to break the sullen silence. “I hate _running away_ from her like that!” she snarls, yanking the ties of her clothes forcefully. “I don’t like letting her _win_!”

“Win what? A silly, childish argument over the bath? A venom-spitting contest?” Suki snaps. “If we have to walk away, that’s what we do, because I did _not_ get you all back just to get you hurt or killed in a fight with _her_ again!”

She wishes she’d phrased that better. Her whole squad looks hurt and bitter at the implication that they’d lose before they even got the chance to fight.

Then Miki speaks up. “She’s wrong,” she says firmly, straightening her skirt. Their green-and-gold uniforms haven’t been located yet, but at least an effort was made to bring them brown clothes instead of red, even if it does mean they have a slightly erratic collection of what looks more like under-layers than full outfits. “I’m not going to waste sleep on her insults, because they’re based on her being petty and _wrong_. Suki’s right. Her opinion doesn’t matter enough to fight her on it._” _She links her arms through Kimi’s and Michiko’s, smiling. “I’m a Kyoshi Warrior. My sisters care about me, so who else matters?”

“…Sure,” Michiko says, smiling back at her best friend, “but Suki, we’ve got to get some weapons so I can tear a strip off that bitch next time she talks like that anyway.”

“Michiiiiiii… please don’t restart the war,” Miki groaned. “I’m just ready to go _home_.” She sighed. “I feel bad for transcendent girls and boys living in the Fire Nation, though, with a royal family like _that_.”

That gives Suki pause. Azula is just _horrible_, so it’s no surprise she’d be horrible to Miki about her body, but Miki _did_ get sent to a men’s prison instead of a women’s with the other girls, or even a mixed prison like the Boiling Rock. If that attitude is everywhere in the Fire Nation, does Fire Lord Zuko hold it too? He’s been very insistent that Suki can talk to him about reparations for burning down her village, but can she tell him how to govern his own people? People he might think are perverts and criminals?

She wishes Aang was here. He _was_ Avatar Kyoshi in a past life, after all. Maybe he’d understand and be better at talking to Zuko. Miki’s right, the last thing they need to do is restart the war, now that they’re reunited and _so _close to going home.

“Fire Lord Zuko owes me a talk about reparations anyway,” she says, “and when Avatar Aang returns from planning the peace conference, I’ll talk to him about transcendence in the Fire Nation. I don’t know if the Fire Lord will listen to me about it, but he _has_ to listen to the Avatar.”

~F~F~F~

It takes the whole time that the servants are draining the bath, cleaning it to Azula’s satisfaction, and refilling it for Ty Lee to talk her back into a good mood. It’s a good thing she’s an expert at managing Azula’s moods, but she’s sure that the princess has still filed away Suki’s last shot at her for later retribution. Ty Lee knows she’s going to be working full time to keep a fight breaking out before the Kyoshi Warriors go home.

She’ll miss Suki when she goes, even though it feels like they aren’t friends anymore. It makes her sad, but she knew it might happen when she returned to Azula’s side. It’s happened before. She’s met girls in the colonies and the outer reaches of the Fire Nation who think their princess is the coolest thing ever, who want to wear their hair and makeup like her and learn to firebend like her, but Azula isn’t so popular among people who’ve actually met her, and when they see that Ty Lee is friends with the princess, they start to avoid her too. It hurts when people won’t be friends with her anymore for a reason like that, but she’s used to it. The alternative is breaking friends with Azula, and that feels like a bad idea for a lot of reasons.

For now, she enjoys how good the hot water feels. She did her best to keep up her stretching regimen in prison, but she really didn’t have the space for a full workout, and she’s been getting a little rusty on her jumps, flips and cartwheels. She’s been getting back into a regular training regimen, but rebuilding her abilities has been sore. “Isn’t this nice?” she says happily, unbraiding her hair so it can soak in the water.

Azula leans back against the edge of the bath. “Mai had better turn up tomorrow,” she says. “A few of the regional governors have returned to their town-houses to pledge their fealty to the new Fire Lord.” She says it in a mocking tone, like she’s talking about people trying to teach their lion-dog to sing.

Ty Lee doesn’t ask why Azula doesn’t just send for Mai. Azula often doesn’t send for people. She assumes that people should turn up and wait on her until she wants them. She’s never sent for Ty Lee, but Ty Lee’s pretty sure that the princess is secretly pleased that she turns up every day anyway. She never sends for Mai and is grumpy when the stoic girl doesn’t come to see her, though she pretends she doesn’t care. Ty Lee wants to talk to Mai about it, but she’s pretty sure Mai knows what she’s doing and is making a point. She respects that Mai doesn’t want to let Azula dictate her friendships or what she does with her time, but she can’t shake the feeling that Azula needs _somebody_ on her side.

If Ty Lee’s the only one willing to do that, that’s just how it is. “Well, if they actually turned up, that’s a good sign for Zuko, right?” she says brightly.

“It just means that they aren’t stupid enough to be in _open_ opposition,” Azula scoffs. “What they say over private tea with _me_ will be much more valuable.” She runs her fingers through the water, sniffing them as if checking for contamination. “Really, if those mud perverts want a mixed bath, they should go to a public bathhouse rather thank stinking up the royal baths.”

Ty Lee winces. So they _are_ still talking about this. Well, she can at least make an effort. She hasn’t heard the term “transcendent” before, but she knew some women like that in the circus, and one or two men too, and they’d had strange senses of humour but they’d been her friends. A lot of people wound up in the circus because they couldn’t live normal lives, for one reason or another, but most of them weren’t _bad_ people, and it wasn’t fair of Azula to call them perverts. A couple of the women had even protected Ty Lee whenever she got an admirer from the audience who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. Azula never gets that sort of admirer, though, so maybe she doesn’t know what a _real_ pervert was like, just the nasty sort who turned up in plays.

“They probably do things differently in the Earth Kingdom,” she tries. “They weren’t doing anything perverted, anyway, they were just having a bath…”

“They aren’t children,” Azula scoffs. “They’re political prisoners. I can’t believe Zuzu lets them have the run of the palace like this.”

“I think it’s great that Zuko’s trying to make friends in the Earth Kingdom!” Ty Lee says brightly.

Azula laughs bitterly. “Please. We’ve spent a century conquering their pitiful excuse for a country. If Zuko thinks we’re all going to join hands and sing happy songs together, he’s even more stupid and naive than I thought.”

“Oh, you know Zuko,” Ty Lee says, responding to the bitterness by reinforcing her chipper attitude. “Even if it’s impossible, he’s still going to try. You know he never gives up when he’s set his mind to something!”

That means Azula as much as the Earth Kingdom, and Ty Lee hopes that Azula knows it. Even if Ty Lee ever gave up on Azula, Zuko won’t.

That’s how Ty Lee knows she isn’t just friends with Azula because she’s scared not to be, or out of some sense of obligation. She _wants_ to be Azula’s friend. She _wants_ to help Azula be a better person. She knows it won’t be easy, but it’s what she wants to do. She wants to strip away all of Ozai’s fingerprints all over Azula’s personality and reach the girl she’s _so_ sure is under there somewhere. She _wants_ to help Azula.

_Is that perverted, too?_

~F~F~F~

Suki was offered rooms when she arrived at the Fire Nation palace, but she’d refused at first out of the sheer joy of seeing Sokka and the others again and wanting to be near them, and has stuck with the refusal on principle. She’s had Fire Nation _hospitality _for months in the Boiling Rock. She will not be plied with their luxuries now in some weak attempt to make up for it. She prefers camping in the gardens with her squad, with Katara and Toph, and with the warriors from the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom who are being released.

It’s… good to know, sort of, that Fire Lord Zuko is keeping his word in terms of releasing prisoners. But her gut still curdles when she thinks of the conditions in the Boiling Rock, the injuries and starvation on both her squad and the men captured during the invasion. She hates thinking of the way that Azula talked to Miki, but that’s one piece of nastiness that she can’t write off as just being the princess, because Miki was sent to a men-only prison camp, and she doesn’t boast about the things she endured like the other girls do, so it must have been _bad_. After a night spent barely sleeping out of frustration, she decides that she’s done waiting for Fire Lord Zuko to invite her to a meeting. He’s going to _make_ time to hear her out.

He _does_ owe her a conversation about reparations to Kyoshi Island, anyway. Wouldn’t be a bad time to talk about showing some respect.

She doesn’t take her whole squad, especially because Miki is quietly humiliated by the episode in the bathhouse and doesn’t want anybody making more problems on account of her. Suki understands, but she’s also aware that Miki has suffered _months_ of humiliations in the prison camp, and she won’t tolerate _her_ squadmate’s suffering one moment later. It’s generally agreed that going off alone in the Fire Nation palace is a bad idea, however, so she does bring Michiko, who is incensed about how the Fire Nation has treated her best friend. She’s mostly kept to the route between their campsite and the bathhouse, not interested in exploring the palace, but she’s interested _now._

The palace is _huge_. Suki knows she should ask for directions, but she doesn’t want to ask for _anything_ from Fire Nation servants, and anyway most of them either avoid her and Michiko by ducking down a side corridor, or bow their heads while refusing to make eye contact as they hurry past. They don’t want to talk to her any more than she wants to talk to them. Suki heard enough jibes in prison about monstrously strong mud monsters to guess why.

By paying attention to the flow of servants, she’s able to deduce the way to a portion of the palace that seems to be the inner sanctum. There are more guards in this area, which she takes as another good sign, even though she gets stopped by them more frequently to ask who she is and what she’s doing.

“I am Commander Suki of the Kyoshi Warriors,” she says every time, straightening her spine and making her tone as imperious as possible, praying to Kyoshi for dignity and intimidation. “I have important business with Fire Lord Zuko.”

It works every time. They let her pass. They don’t offer her directions. A downside to convincing people that you know what you’re doing is that they also assume that you know where you’re going. Still, Suki has all day to search, and she doesn’t anticipate being any less angry any time soon.

They find themselves crossing through another garden, far smaller and more delicate than the one that everybody’s camping in. There’s a path down the middle of it, but it’s also ringed with balconies, some of them with sliding doors half-open. Suki peers through them as she and Michiko walk through the garden, trying to discern if the Fire Lord is in any of the rooms that overlook this garden. Naturally the Fire Lord is afforded a pleasant view of a beautiful garden as he works, while across the Fire Nation and colonies, prisoners labour in cramped, stinking basements to sew clothing or weave bamboo or smelt metal for weaponry.

The second she hears the first shout, her knife is in her hand. The first scream makes her want to flee—getting involved in other people’s fights at the prison was a big mistake. But she is a Kyoshi Warrior, and older instincts war with fresh survival habits, telling her to follow the scream, to be ready to fight, to be ready to _help._

The conflict keeps her in place for a few crucial breaths. Somebody goes crashing through some sliding doors ahead of them, tumbling over the balcony with a cry of pain, a hair’s breadth ahead of a wave of fire.

“MOM!” a figure screams as they hit the ground, pushing up on their elbows and revealing that what Suki had thought to be one person is in fact two, clinging tightly to each other. She gets a glimpse of Fire Lord Zuko’s scarred face, frantic as he pushes himself up to sitting, shoving the woman clutching him behind his back as more fire is blasted at him from black-clad figures on the balcony. He dispels the fire with a sweep of his arms, as if doing no more than blocking a splash of water, though he cries out in pain as he does it.

Suki is already moving, all the frustration and fear and anger melting away as her focus sharpens. _Here_ is somethings she trains for, something she knows how to do. Here is something she can _handle_, right here, right now.

“Far side!” Suki shouts to Miki over the sound of the Fire Lord bellowing for guards as the assassins start another firebending form that they won’t get to complete. The balconies are low enough that she hauls herself up, silently blessing the fact that at least she’d had the space in her cell to do some kata, to keep herself fit. Planting her hands on the wooden floor, she swings herself up, not going straight to standing but instead keeping herself propped on her hands as she swings her legs around to bring the closest assassin down. They haven’t even hit the ground before she’s leaping over them to strike the one in the middle. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Michiko dive past her to engage the third assassin.

She employs some of the chi strikes Ty Lee taught her to disable the arms, then a strong punch to the gut, then spins past the man to get the chi points in his back. Ty Lee would never agree to teach Suki the chi strikes to turn off firebending, which was frustrating, but they can’t firebend if they can’t move, right?

When he collapses like a pile of overcooked noodles, she turns to the one she knocked down first, then immediately has to drop to avoid a fire blast to the face. She has no choice to go for the knees, and she’s at the wrong angle to hit the chi points there so instead she just slams the hilt of her knife into the side of the kneecap as hard as she can. The man crumples with a scream of pain, and she lands a knee in his gut as he goes down.

Boots clatter behind her and she spins to face the new opponent, automatically seeking out the weak points in his fire nation armour—under the armpits, the thighs, and from this angle she can get up under the helmet—

The soldier’s sword is pointed not at her, but at the assassin, and she remembers just in time that the Fire Lord is, theoretically, not her enemy any more, and therefore nor are any soldiers loyal to him.

“Michiko!” she calls as she saw her friend begin to move. Michiko flushes as she remembers herself, stilling, but not dropping her defensive stance even as she steps aside to allow the guards to grab the assassins and drag them away.

“Commander Suki.” Looking over the burnt-away edges of the balcony, she sees Fire Lord Zuko still sitting on the ground, hissing between his teeth a little as his mother carefully picks the rags of his sleeves out of the angry pink burns now decorating his forearms. The older woman’s exposed arms and legs are covered in purple and black bruises from the tumble, and the back of her dress is singed, but she doesn’t seem seriously injured. The Fire Lord isn’t looking at her, however, but up at Suki, and when she catches his eyes, he actually smiles awkwardly, as if embarrassed. “I’m surprised to see you in this part of the palace, but I’m definitely grateful. Sorry you got mixed up in that assassination attempt.” He winces as his mother peels some more cloth off his arm before it can get too stuck in the wound. “I can hear Azula now,” he mutters, before segueing into such a dead-on impersonation of his sister that Suki can’t help raising her knife again. “’Oh, Zuzu, I can’t leave you for _one_ afternoon, can I…?’”

His mother snorts what might be a suppressed chuckle, then says, “Zuko, what do we say to the nice ladies who just saved our lives?”

“Right. Yeah. Thank you, Kyoshi Warriors,” Fire Lord Zuko says, bowing his head to Suki and Michiko. A few of the guards hovering around him follow suit, bowing to them, which was just _weird_. “I’m sorry to ask more of you, but is there a chair in the room behind you…?”

“A… yeah,” Suki says, looking around and spotting a chair with wheels lying on its side in a corner of the room. From the looks of the charred papers lying about, some of which are still burning, and the massive splash of blank ink, the assassins had struck in the middle of writing some letter or proclamation. She remembers seeing Zuko in the chair with wheels when she’d arrived; looking back into the garden, he’s making no move to attempt to stand, nor is anybody attempting to help him to his feet. “C’mon,” she says to Michiko, sticking the knife in her belt and going to pick up the chair.

“We’re not his _servants_,” Michiko hisses, though she does help Suki right the chair, albeit grumpily.

“I don’t think he can walk, Michi,” Suki whispers.

A little of the grumpiness fades, replaced by a troubled expression. “Another assassination attempt?” she mumbles as they pass the chair down to some of the guards, who help their Fire Lord back into it.

“We should get you to Doctor Zho,” the Fire Lord’s mother frets, started to get up, then wincing and reaching down to touch a badly bruised leg. To Suki’s expert eye, she’s twisted her knee, probably either on the way over the edge of the balcony or by landing on it when she hit the ground. It had been an impressive dive to knock her son out of the path of the flames, but why didn’t she try to block them? Is the Fire Lord’s _mother_ a _nonbender?_

“In a minute,” Fire Lord Zuko says, scowling down at his arms. “The assassins?” he asks, looking up at his guards.

“Three unconscious or incapacitated,” one guard says, throwing what might actually be an impressed look up at Suki and Michiko. Suki sits down on the edge of the balcony, enjoying being above all these Fire Nation types for a little while. “On their way to the royal prisons. One of the door guards was badly injured and is on her way to Doctor Zho, but the other is dead.”

Fire Lord Zuko grimaces. “Who?”

The guard looks taken aback, evidently not expecting that question any more than Suki did, and has to turn to talk with the other guards for a moment. “Kudi,” they say. “He’s from—”

“Kimu, the mining village. Shit,” the Fire Lord mutters. “Inform Guard Captain Ming that I want a pension sent to his family. Not a regular guard’s pension. He died trying to protect me. A Guard Captain’s pension, understand?”

“Right away, Fire Lord,” the guard says, hurrying away.

The Fire Lord raises a hand as the other guards started to converge on him. “Doctor Zho’s busy with one of my guards, and these aren’t bad burns,” he insists, glancing at his arms. “They can wait. Mom, maybe you should—”

“I’ll be fine, and don’t you _dare_ try to talk me into seeing the doctor before you do.”

The Fire Lord looks her up and down, nods, then looks back to Suki. “Commander Suki, I owe you and your compatriot my life and the life of my mother,” he says formally. “I’m guessing you’re in this part of the palace looking for me. If you have something to ask, you’ll never be in a better position…”

“Good,” Suki says, straightening up. “We have a _lot_ to talk about, but first things first, we need to talk about the treatment of a member of my squad…”

~F~F~F~

When Azula returns to the Palace and hears what happened, the first place she goes is Doctor Zho’s office. Of course Zuko’s there, though Doctor Zho is nowhere to be seen, possibly attached to whoever is whimpering piteously in the next room.

It’s the _waterbender_ who is working on the raw pink skin on Zuko’s forearms with handfuls of glowing water, and Azula’s whole body tenses at the sight of her, at those horrible, thieving brown hands—

There’s another barbarian room, a tall man who is watching Azula with narrowed blue eyes. She has an excellent memory, so she quickly places him as the leader of the ragtag little band who invaded the Caldera on the day of the eclipse, what passes for a leader down south, and the father of the waterbender and her brother. Chaperoning his little girl through the big bad Fire Nation Palace? How cute. He’s trying to look big and scary, but he’s no waterbender like his daughter, so he’s far from the biggest threat in the room.

“I cannot leave you for _five_ _minutes_, can I, Zuzu?” she snaps, deciding to ignore all Water Tribe savages. Mai brushes past her, her face as carefully impassive as ever, but her eyes are fixed on Zuko’s burned arms. Really, what kind of firebender gets _burned_?

“I’m fine,” Zuko says. Azula could have laid money on him saying that. “Thank you, Master Katara,” he says, bowing his head as if the _Fire Lord _needs to be deferential to _savages_. Azula is going to have her work cut out for her restoring the dignity of the crown once she takes it back. “Is it alright if I talk to my sister?”

“I can’t stop you,” the waterbender says, bending her water back into a canteen and glowering at Azula as she sweeps out of the room. Her father follows her, though he steps around Azula without turning his back on her, so clearly he’s where the son got his smarts from.

“I shouldn’t have left today,” Mai says after they’re gone, glancing darkly at Azula. Azula smiles, thinking of the tightrope her _former_ friend is on. To stay by Zuzu’s side and protect him from imminent threats, or to attend on Azula and try to protect him from the only threat that _really_ matters?

“I’m fine, really,” Zuko insists. “Mom knocked me out of the way of the first attack—”

It must have been firebending assassins, going by the burns on Zuko’s arms. “What kind of _Fire Lord_ needs protected from fire by a _non-bender_?” Azula snaps.

“…Three non-benders,” Zuko admits. “Two of the Kyoshi Warriors took the assassin’s down. Mom’s resting in her room if you want to see her,” he adds. “She got some bumps, but she’s fine.”

Of course she is. It would have been the _first_ thing Azula heard when she got back if anything serious had happened to Ursa, not that she cares. She’s angry, of course, because it took her and Zuko quite the trip to find the woman. How _dare_ anybody try to take Mother away before Azula is done with her?

She’s already seen the lines of a dissident network beginning to form in the Caldera. She’ll have to encourage it to form faster to slow down some of these assassination attempts. They need to grasp that Zuko is _hers, _and _she_ will be the one to kill him when _she_ decides the time is right. The sick feeling burning in her gut must be frustration that anybody would _dare_ interfere with her plans.

“We need to talk about the Kyoshi Warriors, by the way,” Zuko says, glancing from Azula to Ty Lee. “I told Commander Suki that you prefer a bath after morning training and evening, so she’s going to take her squad in the morning. None of you will have to run into each other in the bath again.”

“Do you intend to turn a blind eye to those sluts sneaking a _boy_ into the bath with them?” Azula snaps. The change in topic is a little random, but Zuko can be like that, and they _do_ need to set this straight.

“He’s—she’s a Kyoshi Warrior,” Zuko says. “In the Earth Kingdom, they believe that spirits are male and female—”

“Preposterous,” Azula scoffs. “Spirits have _elements_, not genders. Surely any child can see that.”

Zuko shrugs. “They do things differently in the Earth Kingdom. It’s their belief that sometimes a male spirit can be born in a female body, or a female spirit in a male body. One of their warriors was born in a male body, but as far as they’re concerned, she’s a girl. They weren’t up to anything… inappropriate. They were just taking a bath.”

“So they’d tell _you_,” Azula argues. “Really, Zuko, if you are going to tolerate such deviance in the walls of the palace itself—”

Zuko shakes his head. “They are honoured guests,” he says firmly. “They saved my life. They saved _Mom__’s_ life. I don’t really get it either, but it doesn’t matter. So long as they are here, they _will_ be treated with respect. I’ve told the bathhouse servants that if they aren’t comfortable waiting on the Kyoshi Warriors, they don’t have to—I don’t think they want servants waiting on them, anyway. But they are _not_ to treat them like perverts. I know I can’t order you to do anything,” he continues with a sigh, “but it won’t be too long before Avatar Aang returns from the North Pole and can take them home. Until then, they’re willing to diplomatically avoid you. Will you _please_ just… not start a fight?”

“Oh, well, since you asked so _nicely_,” Azula sighs, rolling her eyes. She really _will _have her work cut out for her. She won’t deny that it’s tempting to provoke the Kyoshi Warriors into a fight—they _did_ give her an impressive fight for non-benders, after all. She thinks of the look in their commander’s eyes in the bath yesterday, fully ready to take Azula on without proper weapons or even a stitch of clothing, just a knife and her hatred. It’s an exhilarating prospect, because Azula hasn’t had a proper fight for too long, but luckily for her, Azula has better things to do. Assassins to interrogate, for one thing.

“Thanks, Azula,” Zuko says, though from the look on his face it’s more out of manners than out of believing she’s sincere. So he _can _learn. Then he gives her that dorky little smile of his and asks, “so, meet anybody interesting today?”

Azula just rolls her eyes and walks out, ordering, “work on your firebending,” as she goes. She isn’t interested in pretending like Mai isn’t going to tell him everything that happened today once they’re alone. And because Zuko is an idiot, once he knows everybody she met with and everything they talked about, he’ll do absolutely nothing about it.

She’s nearly at Mother’s room before she notices Ty Lee didn’t follow her, and she’s annoyed both that the ditzy girl has wandered off, that Azula didn’t notice, and that she apparently went to Mother’s room without thinking about it. She intends to go see about interrogating the captured assassins, but she might as well check in on Ursa while she’s here. The woman does have a habit of running off, after all.

~F~F~F~

“Um… Zuko?” Ty Lee says, once Azula’s left the room. She hopes Azula won’t notice that Ty Lee didn’t follow her for a while. Not that she’ll come back to get Ty Lee if she does, because people like Azula are not in the habit of coming back for things that they left behind. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course,” Zuko says. He starts wrapping clean bandages around his arms, until Mai swats his hands away and starts doing it. “What about?”

“Suki said the girl in her squad… she said their word for it is ‘transcendent’,” Ty Lee says, going into a handstand while she asks the question. When her gut starts turning nervously, she finds it calming to do some turning of her own. “Did you know that can happen to people in the Fire Nation, too?”

“Wh… you mean, being a female spirit in a male body?”

Ty Lee nods, then giggles at how weird doing that feels when she’s upside-down. “Some of my friends in the circus were transcendent!” she says brightly. She’d never tell Azula about them, because she’s scared for what might happen to them, but Zuko’s _nice_, and he’s the Fire Lord now, so maybe if he decides to be nice to them, others will too. “They came from all over the Fire Nation, so it isn’t just an Earth Kingdom thing. Some of them really missed their homes, but they couldn’t go back without being arrested for being deviants and sent to hospital. They didn’t _seem_ crazy, though, and they weren’t perverts…” She flips back into a normal position. She thinks of running away to join the circus when she’d just turned thirteen and her body was changing shape and had grown in ways that boys wouldn’t stop _staring_ at, joking loudly about, trying to grab, and finally feeling _safe_ when taken under the wing of a couple of trapeze acrobats, lovely women who just happened to have to shave every morning. “Can you… can you at least think about fixing it so they don’t get sent to hospital anymore? So they can just… go home and live their lives?”

Zuko rests his chin on his hand thoughtfully. “Do you think any of them would be willing to meet me?” he asks. “I just… didn’t know there were people like that in the Fire Nation. I want to know more. I promise that they won’t get arrested or be in any trouble, I just want to talk to them.”

“I’ll write some letters!” Ty Lee says excitedly, bouncing to her feet. Most of her friends probably won’t want to come to the royal palace or out themselves to the Fire Lord himself, but maybe one or two will be willing to take the risk if it means they can make a difference. She won’t know until she asks. “Thanks, Zuko!”

She cartwheels happily out of the room, then swerves away from going to her own room to go try and find the camp so she can talk to Suki and her friends. She knows Azula isn’t sorry for how she treated them, but _Ty Lee_ is sorry for how Azula treated them, and she wants to apologize. Plus, they seem cool, and Ty Lee wants to get to know them better while they’re still here.

Maybe they won’t want to be friends with her at all because she’s friends with Azula, but she’s Ty Lee, so she’s still going to try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zuko's up for some fascinating conversations about the nature of gender and the self in the future, but sometimes you just gotta let people use the facilities and not make a big deal out of it.
> 
> I'm getting to sorting Zuko's firebending soon, I promise! He's putting it down to not being able to stand and do the proper forms any more, but anybody who remembers "The Firebending Masters" probably remembers that there's more to it than that...
> 
> I think I want to return to this topic in the future with some actual trans characters getting all of the scene perspectives, but I'm not trans myself so I want to put more research into it before trying that, and it just might not be my lane at all. This chapter's more about cultural clashes and just, as the title says, treating folk with basic respect. 
> 
> Trans Kyoshi is a headcanon I picked up while worldbuilding for my other ATLA fic, Overcoming, based on Kyoshi having a lot of traits that are commonly associated with trans women--large feet, tall, strong voice, iconic makeup look, hates fascists, powerful agent of societal change, etc. Miki is also in Suki's squad in that fic, though her being trans hasn't been explicitly stated yet. That fic also features a cis boy in the squad who's extremely comfortable in both his masculinity and his talent for joint locks, Kyota, but his presence in this chapter kinda distracted and confused the point that Miki is a girl who just wants to take a bath with her squad, so he isn't in this fic. Sorry, Kyota, I promise the squad will be back later in Overcoming.
> 
> The Fire Nation is based on an amalgam of East Asian countries and cultures, but as I think I've mentioned before, I tend to lean on Japanese culture when in doubt because I lived there for a few years so while I'm by no means an expert I know a little more about it. Public baths aren't as common now as they used to be because almost every flat has its own shower now, but there's still a few around, and onsen (hot springs) are still reasonably popular. Despite the fantasies of horny anime, onsen are not sexy paradises of nubile teenagers--they're apparently most popular with the elderly (according to my coworkers, anyway. I never found an onsen near where I lived that would let me in with my tattoos :x). Nudity in a bathing/swimming situation isn't very stigmatized in Japan, as those are considered to be both appropriate times to be naked and not inherently sexual situations. Some onsen will have mixed baths, but there'll still be divided male and female baths, too. I'm imagining the Fire Nation royal palace has some smaller, private tubs, but in this case Azula went to the larger bath because she was hanging out with Ty Lee, and I imagine that bath to be about the size of one of those swimming pools suburban Americans always seem to have in their back gardens. I figure this one is accessible both to the royal family and honoured guests, while the servants have another bath of their own. Azula would probably prefer that the Kyoshi Warriors and the rest were sent to the servant's bath, but Zuko's trying to be a respectful host by directing them to the nice bath and probably hasn't clicked that most of them probably don't know or care about the difference :x


End file.
